Path to Transcendence

Chapter 299: Man Vs. Bear

“That’s not normal, right?” He heard Reinera whisper to Professor Rowe.

“No, it is not,” the man replied with a confused look on his face.

“What should I do? Should I kill it?”

The man thought for a moment before shaking his head. “No, it might be a good chance to get a closer look at what is going on. Can you try to capture it with your chains?”

Reinera shrugged her shoulders. “I can try, but I think this fella might be a little harder to capture than the wolves. I have a sneaking suspicion that itʼs pretty fast.”

The man was about to say something, but was rudely interrupted when the monster flickered with a flash of silver and dashed toward Reinera.

He saw that Professor Rowe was about to intervene, but the man held back when he saw that Reniera wasn’t caught off guard.

She created a dome of chains surrounding the creature and collapsed onto it.

This seemed to work and the chains grappled the squirrel as it struggled against the bonds.

For a moment, Julius thought it was already finished, but then he sensed a powerful surge of mana coming from the creature. An explosion of silver light blasted from its body, fractured the chains enough to break through.

He didn’t know if the squirrel realized that it had picked on something bigger than expected, but instead of rushing toward Reinera again, this time it ran away in the opposite direction.

Julius couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.

At least the little bugger is smart enough to know when to run, he thought with an amused grin.

Reinera tried to run after it, but the thing was really quick. It split through the trees and off into the forest before she could catch it.

“Well that was weird,” he finally said as they all stared at where the monster had run off to.

“I agree, we should head back,” Professor Rowe said to them.

“What? Why would we do that? We are already pretty deep,” Reinera said to him.

“I don’t feel comfortable with two delving this rift when you recently advanced to Tier 3. There is no doubt that this rift is undergoing some kind of transformation at the moment and I would rather we didn’t take any risks,” Professor Rowe explained.

“I thought that was why you wanted to bring us in here? You know, to test us?”

The man frowned and looked at the trees around them. “I wanted to test you guys in a more controlled environment. This is far from controlled. I have no idea what would force the rift to undergo such drastic changes, but the fact that a squirrel has managed to transform into a Tier 3 monster is indicative of the severity of the issue.”

Julius understood where the man was coming from. At the end of the day, Professor Rowe was a teacher and had to prioritize students’ safety before anything else. So the decision to fall back would be considered the safest option.

With that being said, Julius had no real desire to leave, not when it was finally getting a little interesting. He knew that Reinera was feeling the exact same way, if the excited smile on her face was anything to go on.

So when Professor Rowe had already started to head back toward the rift entrance, he had to stop to look back at where Julius and Reinera were both still standing.

“Come on, let’s head on back. I will get a group of other organized to come investigate.”

“Give us a shot! We can protect ourselves, we promise,” Reinera pleaded.

“I can’t take that chance. Remember the last time something weird happened in a rift? You two were transported to a random rift and almost died,” the man reminded them.

Oh yeah, he kind of forgot that Professor Rowe had been the one with them when it happened.

“And because of that, we got a lot stronger. Plus, this will be a great experience for us if we ever encounter something similar. But next time we won’t have a Tier 4 looking out for us,” Reinera said so convincingly that even Julius didn’t notice that he was nodding along right beside her.

Professor Rowe looked at her with a serious gaze. “Are you sure?” He asked.

“Absolutely.”

Their teacher sighed and deflated a little. “Okay, but when I say we leave, we leave. No arguing about, okay?”

“Understood!” Reinera said with a beaming smile.

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***

They didn’t come across any more Tier 3s, but the deeper they walked into the rift, the more they spotted signs of this silverish corruption.

The feeling of this metallic-like mana got even stronger, which made them all wonder what could have caused this.

A few monsters decided to attack them, but weirdly, they didn’t come across that many of them.

Eventually, they came close to the center of the rift, and Julius spotted a huge lake just up ahead. But what he saw made him pause in interest because the water was almost like diluted mercury instead of a crystal blue lake he had been expecting.

“That doesn’t seem good,” he said with a blank stare at the lake. “Does it always look like a pool of melted metal?”

“No, no, it does not,” Professor Rowe confirmed for him.

Julius ended up perking up when he spotted a group of monsters heading toward them. Like the squirrel, these ones had the auras of Tier 3s.

However, unlike the squirrel, these seemed much more enthusiastic about fighting them. Several wolves were stalking toward them, but the most interesting one was the giant bear standing at the back.

He looked over at Reinera. “You want to handle the wolves, and I get the big guy?”

She grinned at him and created a bunch of spears of light over her head.

“Are you sure you can handle it?” She teased him.

He rolled his eyes and shoved her toward the incoming wolves. “Just worry about yourself, alright,” he said with a sigh.

She almost fell over but was laughing as she regained her balance. And before the wolves could get any closer, she sent her volley of spears at the monsters.

He wasn’t surprised when they pierced their defenses easily. They didn’t stand a chance. A good portion of them were killed in a matter of moments. The rest of them hesitated after the attack.

Julius ignored them and slowly walked over to the bear, who was staring at Professor Rowe with a careful look on its face.

This bear wasn’t like the two-headed bear he had fought in that other Tier 3 rift. That one was a stretch to call a bear. This one, though, was very much a bear. The only thing that wasn’t the same was the fact that it had a dull silver coat of fur.

The bear saw Julius approaching it, but for some reason, it must have decided that he wasn’t the main threat and continued to look at Professor Rowe. He sagged his shoulders, upset that he was ignored, but still headed over with a slow gait.

It was only when he stood in front of the monster that it finally decided to shift its attention onto Julius. And with a careless swipe of its arm, it swung its claws toward him.

He was quite impressed with the power behind the blow. It was clear that this monster was quite powerful in its own right, and he was almost certain that it had a Concept of its own. Based on the aura he was getting from the monster, he would guess that it was metal-related.

With that being said, Julius didn’t see a reason to avoid the blow. As a matter of fact, he was quite curious about how he would be able to handle the blow with just his pure strength.

So before it hit him, he managed to create a thin layer of mana over his body. He channeled power through [Pyronkinetic Embodiment of Ruin] and [Barrier of Severance], the latter of which was still hovering at level 18. It was a skill he hoped to evolve since it was one of three skills that hadn’t evolved to epic yet.

He had been using it during his previous three matches already and was hoping that he would be able to advance it before the tournament ended.

Moreover, the other two skills that hadn’t evolved were [Flash Step] and [Spatial Perception]. Both of which he wanted to learn a Space Concept before he evolved them. While he didn’t have to, he thought he would get better options or at least options that would suit what he wanted better.

When the bear’s arm smashed into him, he barely felt a thing and didn’t even budge. He hadn’t siphoned any of the monster’s kinetic energy either, which just showed how much stronger he had become physically.

He chuckled to himself as the bear looked at him with confusion clear in its eyes. It was probably expecting to smash Julius into a smear of blood. Seeing that its attack was ineffective seemed to make the bear’s brain go haywire. It held up the arm it used to attack with to its face and examined it like there was something wrong with it.

However, Julius was a polite guy and so he let the bear regain its bearings, not moving an inch or attacking it in the meantime.

Eventually, the bear decided that it needed to attack again and so when it swung its claws toward him for a second time, he smiled when he saw that it was being much more serious.

The power behind the blow had a lot more momentum and was heading straight for his face.

Since the monster was taking him more seriously, he believed that it was only fair that he would reciprocate in the same manner. So with a calm expression on his face, he lifted his arm to block the incoming claw.

The shockwave from the impact between their two arms rippled throughout the field and he chuckled as he was actually pushed back slightly. There was so much weight behind the blow that it was inevitable not to.

“Finally getting serious now, huh?” He said to the beast, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be able to speak back.

He was sure that there was some kind of skill the monster had to increase the weight of its attacks and he wouldnʼt be shocked to learn that it was attached to whatever Concept it had.

Unfortunately for the beast, it had come across Julius who had four Concepts of his own. Which meant that when the bearʼs Concept tried to oppress him, the monster found it impossible to make any headway.

Seeing that Julius had once again withstood its attack, the monster decided to throw everything at him. Its uncaring attitude had drastically changed into one of pure animalistic rage, and it roared as it swung another arm at his face.

Julius took a step backward, let the claw whoosh by him, and clobbered his fist into the beast, sending it staggering off to the side.

It quickly got back to its feet and dashed toward Julius with a breathtaking display of speed for something of its size and stature.

This time, instead of trying to bash his face in, it decided to ram into him.

He noticed that a silverish sheen covered the bearʼs entire body, and sharp spikes were created, covering its whole body like a porcupine would.

Julius smiled as he saw this skill activate and channeled even more mana into [Barrier of Severance] to match this beast, and without another word, rushed headlong into the bear.

If it wanted a brawl, he would happily give it one. He had some things he wanted to test, and this bear would help him accomplish that.

Plus, he could use some good fun and a good fight. Lately, he hadn’t been able to let himself go. However, this bear was nice enough to give him that chance.

So with a big grin, he smashed into the bear and the two of them tried their best to rip each other into pieces.