Path to Transcendence

Chapter 305: Construct Channels

As Tia had predicted, there were plenty of seats available to choose from. He would dare say that more people were fighting than people actually spectating.

However, he saw several adults who looked like representatives of guilds or other groups. He said this because he noticed that these people were wearing some type of emblem on their clothing.

Something he now noticed the woman from the Stormcallers Guild wasn’t wearing.

“Do you guys know who James is supposed to be fighting?” He asked them.

Joshua looked his way. “Yeah, he mentioned it was another first-year named Adam.”

Julius frowned. Where had he heard that name before? He felt like it was someone he should have known about.

It wasn’t until he saw the person walk onto the field that he recognized who Adam was. It was the same asshole who liked to grab his shoulder.

Immediately he started to cheer for James to kick this guys ass back into next week. He didn’t like people like Adam, who went through life thinking that just because he was a noble and handsome, it meant he could just do whatever he wanted.

Julius would have loved nothing more than to beat him up himself, but he was a Tier 3 now and couldn’t just go walking around thrashing people a tier lower than him. That was a big no no in this world, and the reason why he hadn’t done so even after Adam and his cronies had confronted him last time.

People didn’t complain if two people of similar strength clashed heads, but those who purposefully bullied those of a lower tier were looked down on and sometimes even punished by people who could actually fight back. This was a big role for the city guards and Declan’s duties as a vice captain.

So, while as much as he wanted to punt this arrogant noble personally, he had to settle for watching James do it for him.

However, what caught his eye was that before the fight, there was a bunch of talking between the two of them. By the look on Jamesʼs face, it didn’t seem like Adam was saying very nice things either.

Julius observed as the official, off to the side, had to step in and reprimand Adam before signaling the beginning of the fight.

If he was being honest, he was quite surprised to see that the arrogant student had a decent level of skill to be arrogant about.

He was a close combat fighter and had a good set of abilities to support him. Paired with a potent fire affinity that he used to enhance the power of all his attacks, it was quite the threat. The boy was also clearly well-trained in swordsmanship.

Thus, it was a match between two fire users. The main difference was that while one was a mage, the other was a warrior.

Unfortunately, for James, it became clear quite early that he wasn’t going to be the one coming out on top. As much as Julius wanted to cheer for him and wanted him to win, he had to admit the truth. James was outclassed on many levels.

James wasn’t an individual combat specialist, while he was a very good mage on the team, he didn’t do very well when he didn’t have his other teammates supporting him.

This was apparent as Adam picked apart his defenses.

What was even worse was that James was definitely already low on mana. He had been throwing out way too many explosive attacks, so he could not have more than a quarter of his mana remaining.

On the other side, Adam had barely consumed any. He had mainly used some for his enhancement skill and some occasional blasts of fire, but other than that, he had conserved a nice chunk of it.

James continued to try to pin down Adam with a flurry of attacks, but the other boy was too fast and evaded most of them calmly. Adam shrugged off the ones that did manage to hit. Likely having his natural fire resistance to thank for that.

Eventually, the time came when James ran out of mana.

Adam appeared to realize this as well and chuckled as he closed in on James. The shields of fire could only keep Adam back for so long and he finally broke through James’s defenses. Swinging a quick slash at Jamesʼs left shoulder.

Fortunately, James had activated a protective skill and was able to block most of the damage. But there was nothing he could do to stop the kick that sent him flying into the stone floor.

Adam advanced, but not as quickly as he could have. It was as if he was savoring this moment of victory.

Instead of dashing in and taking him out swiftly, Julius sensed a collection of mana around Adam and suddenly several balls of fire popped into existence in front of him.

They rotated for a little bit as Adam continued to approach, and then finally they flew towards James, who was in the middle of recovering.

James tried to avoid them and block the ones he couldn’t, but he was too slow as one of the orbs exploded in a swath of flames, blasting James off his feet for the second time in a row.

As he tumbled across the floor, Julius couldn’t help but notice that once again, Adam wasn’t going in for the kill. He was still leisurely walking toward James with another set of orbs in front, along with a smug grin.

He waited until James got back to his feet before sending two balls of flame at the boy. James did his best to throw himself to the side but was still affected by the fire.

Although he had a fire resistance of his own, it was clear that his wasn’t as good as Adam’s. Thus, the flames caused some notable damage to James.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Adam still chose not to end the fight immediately, which everyone who was watching should be able to notice was well within his capabilities. Instead, he decided to prolong it, tossing the random ball of fire and watching amusingly as James dodged for his life.

Julius stared darkly at Adam below as annoyance started to build into anger.

He knew that the bracelets dampened whatever pain James would experience, but he also understood that wasn’t the real issue.

The real issue was that Adam was purposefully humiliating him in front of his friends and whoever else was watching. That was what was pissing him off.

Joshua, in particular, was furiously standing up and clenching his fists so hard that he was almost drawing blood.

While they were all friends, Joshua and James had a much closer relationship than anyone else. Thus, seeing his best friend getting humiliated in front of him must have made him incredibly furious. If Julius was pissed off, then Joshua was positively livid.

Finally, after what seemed to be forever, Adam finished the fight with one last orb smashing into James’s face, ending the whole thing.

To make things worse, Adam chose this moment to look up at the stands where they were sitting and smirk arrogantly at them.

Whatever doubts of this being purposeful had vanished from Julius’s mind, and whatever hesitation he had about not beating up someone of a lower tier than him had similarly vanished into thin air.

He didn’t care if the other boy was a Tier 2 or even if he was untiered. He was going to smash his skull in and shove it up his ass.

Okay, maybe not that far, he tried to calm himself.

Perhaps, a good beating and I can even try to smush his aura with my own. I bet that will hurt, he thought darkly before scolding himself. That was also too far.

The beating was fine, but there was no need to potentially maim the noble prick. He deserved a broken jaw, not permanent damage to his soul.

So with a calm and purposeful demeanor, he got up and slowly walked down the stairs to where he knew the fighters would leave from.

However, just as he was walking down, he felt someone grab onto his arm. Surprised, he looked back at who it was and was surprised when he saw the raw anger in Joshua’s face.

“Let me handle it,” Joshua said with a dangerous edge to his voice but the entire time his eyes had not strayed from Adam down below.

Julius was about to argue, but when he sensed the pulse from Joshua’s aura, he stopped. Instead, he took a calming breath and activated [Sage of Savagery] to reel in his emotions. Joshua was right, James was his best friend, and he should have first dibs to thrash that arrogant prick down below.

“Okay, but I get to watch,” he said to Joshua.

“Trust me, I want to make sure everyone is watching when I get back at him,” Joshua said in a soft but menacing tone.

***

That night Julius ended up using his additional energy to fuel his training. While he had agreed to let Joshua handle everything, he still had some stress to release.

Which was the reason he was leaning back into his more nonstandard training practices.

He took hold of his [Barrier of Severance] skill and started to force it through his aura. This wasn’t the first time during this session that he had attempted this and he wouldn’t be surprised if this failed just like it had the last several attempts.

The main issue he seemed to be having was that [Barrier of Severance] appeared to need some sort of physical object to attach to. He was able to do this mana since he was able to create material constructs that he could lay the barrier of sharpened mana on top.

However, aura was another challenge entirely. What he was trying to accomplish was something Declan had explained a while ago. He mentioned that there had been a person who was able to use their Sharpness Concept to cut off all mana-based skills.

Since Julius was able to do something similar with his aura already, he thought he might be able to transfer that knowledge to [Barrier of Severance].

With that being said, his aura didn’t exactly destroy mana. It just wreaked havoc on anything it touched. There was no real elegant manipulation. It was just pure destruction.

What he was attempting to do was much different. He was trying to selectively target specific mana from his enemies while not affecting other sources from his allies with his skill.

However, realizing that he wasn’t getting much of anywhere, he wanted to try a few more things. He had gotten an idea when he fought against Bethany earlier. She had used her mana spears as an amplifier for her mana disruption technique.

This enabled the girl to focus on other things while her spear did all the work for her. It also seemed to help strengthen the power of the disruption since it was attached to a strong physical object.

In a weird way, it reminded Julius of a moving domain. While some would fervently disagree with that opinion, the fact remained that the spear had been able to disrupt his mana much like the Tier 5 had been able to with his domain.

The main difference was just how powerful the effects were. Thus, in a way, it was a bastardized version of what a domain offered. He had a feeling that when Bethany got to Tier 4, she would find creating a domain much easier than other people would.

Since he had nothing to lose, he created a small spike in front of him. It was slightly different from his normal spikes, it was still just as tightly compressed with woven threads of mana, but since he had taken his time, the structure of the spike was more refined.

He had been working on being more diligent with each creation. Although he didn’t feel comfortable enough with using them in battle, his time examining Marcus’s own construct helped him immensely.

He had created makeshift channels that flowed through the entire construct in a complex web. This was something he had realized would allow him to send even more mana into his constructs, and while it looked kind of rugged so far, practice would only let him improve.

However, there was another benefit of this, one he hadn’t realized at the time.

He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. As he truly began to understand why Marcus added them, it was clear now that he felt stupid for assuming it was just to shove more mana into it.

These channels weren’t just there to fuel more mana. They were there to stack on additional effects and skills to the construct.

The purpose of these channels was to help his constructs become a base for whatever else he wanted to add. A sturdy prototype and model that he could change little by little for whatever needs he had.

In this case, he wanted to add his Sharpness Concept and [Barrier of Severance] to it.

So he sent the skill rushing through these channels while focusing his intent on what he wanted. He imagined the sharpness aspected mana cutting through the enemyʼs mana-based shields, shredding them apart before they could block his attack.

Much to his surprise, it worked. For the first time since he had been experimenting, he had finally found some success.

The spike that was hovering in front of him was now slightly different from what it had been just moments ago. There was this rhythmic swirl of sharpened mana flowing through the channels of the spike, like blood coursing through one’s veins.

Along with this change came some notifications.

[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 12 -> lv 13]

[Barrier of Severance lvl 18 -> lvl 19]

Immediately understanding that he had made an interesting discovery, he lost track of time as he delved deeply into this new method that he could utilize his constructs for.