Path to Transcendence

Chapter 306: Carried Away Once Again

Julius groaned face-first into the floor. In typical Julius fashion, he had gotten carried away and attempted to jam even more stuff into his Concepts. Once he had learned how well his Sharpness Concept and [Barrier of Severance] had adapted to the new technique, he tried to use it with his aura skill not long after.

That had proven to be a mistake because almost instantly, his construct exploded right in his face.

Apparently, his spike was not able to handle such strains at this stage. He would definitely need to practice before he could. It was something he should have seen coming as well, because in the case of [Barrier of Severance] and his Sharpness Concept, they already had an established connection with [Armaments of the Arcane]. His skill has used the Concept as a basis for evolving itself into an epic skill, and while he had added additional Concepts later on, there was still an originating connection.

Regardless, he shouldn’t have been surprised when things literally blew up in his face. It was bound to happen, especially after he had gotten so excited.

However, what he hadn’t expected was Lily knocking on the door almost immediately afterward. That was definitely not something he had or could have predicted.

“Julius, open up! I know you’re in there!” He heard her yelling through the door.

Instead of immediately heading over to open the door, he stood there in confusion. How did she know which room he was in? Usually, he had to tell them but she hadn’t asked him.

“Open the damn door, I heard the explosion. You better not be blowing yourself up again!” She scolded him.

“I think you have the wrong room, maʼam,” he said in a high-pitched voice.

For a moment, he thought he might have actually tricked her, but she rapped on the door again. “I can literally feel you in there, Julius. Did you forget that I am a mind mage and an empath?” She said with a fed-up tone.

Shit, I didn’t actually think she could sense me through the enchanted doors though. I would have thought they prevented her psychic abilities from detecting me, he thought to himself.

With a heavy sigh, he got up and staggered over to the door, making sure to put on a new outfit to replace the one that had burn markings all over it. It would hopefully prevent Lily from berating him that harshly, though, to be fair, she hasn’t been nearly as bad as she was before he left Goldencrest.

It would seem that she had somewhat accepted that he would be doing dumb things and mostly just gave him disappointed looks from time to time.

Finally, he opened the door to reveal Lily, looking as pretty as ever. Her blonde hair had this ephemeral glow to it as her violet eyes sparkled in the low light of the hallway. However, it was somewhat ruined by the vexed expression on her face.

“Really?” She said to him.

He shrugged unapologetically. “I didn’t know that you could sense me through the doors.”

“And that makes it better?”

He chose not to answer that. He had learned when her questions were just traps, thus it was better to stay silent. He suspected that this was a trick she learned when doing business for her family.

As she strolled into the training room, he noticed that she was holding a bag in her left hand.

“What is that you have?” He asked curiously.

“Nothing you would find interesting,” she replied.

He looked at the bag once again and noticed that there were some kind of rectangular packages stacked on top of each other. He already had a sneaking suspicion of what was inside.

“Seriously, what is inside?”

“It was for you.”

“For me?” He asked with an excited grin.

“Yeah, emphasis on was,” she said with a meaningful look.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He gave her a look of bafflement. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“What were you doing in here before I knocked? I heard a loud explosion,” she said with an expectant frown.

He decided to come clean as he thought it was more likely she would give him what was in the bag if he was truthful.

“I was playing with one of my constructs and put too much stuff into it, causing it to explode,” he admitted.

She facepalmed and shook her head. “Why do you keep doing such wildly dangerous experiments? Haven’t you learned your lesson already?”

He shrugged. “You’ve seen my healing skill. I can handle a little damage,” he said to her, trying to reassure her of his safety.

The only response he got in return was her pointed glare toward the area of the room where it was obvious a large explosion occurred. It stood out quite easily because where the rest of the room was a light gray stone color, there was a circle of blackened stone in the middle of the room.

“Fair point, but as you can see, I am perfectly fine,” he said while showing her his unharmed body.

She did take a look at him and when she saw that he was okay, she sighed.

“I don’t know why I even bother anymore. If you want to blow yourself up in your spare time then there is nothing I can do to stop you,” she said defeatedly.

He smiled widely at her. “So that means, you’re gonna share that with me?” He asked while pointing at the bag in her hand.

She couldn’t help but let out a soft grin at his behavior. “Of course, but make sure you save some for the others. We are going to meet up with them later down at the beach,” she said with an amused shake of her head before handing the bag over to him.

He pumped his hands into the air and went over to open the bag. He let out another gasp of surprise at what was revealed.

“Where did you get these?” He asked in awe.

“I had my family send them over for me as a favor. I got them for you as a present for getting past the prelims,” she said with a proud uplifted chin.

She had every right to be proud too because what was displayed in front of him was a glorious sight. The box wasn’t just a simple box, but it was a spatially enhanced box that held an assortment of the most amazing looking pastries he had ever seen.

What was even more astonishing was that he was able to sense mana radiating from them. He had no doubt that the ingredients used weren’t from regular animals and most likely from high-tiered monsters or beasts.

He immediately went over to Lily and gave her a fierce hug, making sure to display all of his gratitude.

“You know me so well,” he said to her.

She smiled and hugged him tightly in return before pushing him away with a light laugh.

“Alright, you need to wash up before we go. You smell like a sweaty ash tray,” she said while pointing at the wash up area in the corner. “I’ll wait and then we can go.”

He didn’t waste a second and ran over to get cleaned up. After all, the faster he cleaned up, the sooner he would be able to taste those delicious looking treats.

***

Today was the day they released the brackets for the second stage.

This was where the tournament finally started. While the prelims were the official start of the tournament, there wasn’t any real consequence for losing a match. If you lost, then it just meant you were placed at a lower seed.

However, now it was a single-elimination game. Whoever lost was out, and for that reason, everyone was much more serious.

Julius went with Aubrey and Edgar to check on the brackets. The others had other things to handle, so they couldn’t come.

They hadn’t even gotten close to the courtyard where they were supposed to post the brackets before they were stuck in a huge crowd. It would seem that they weren’t the only people who wanted to see where they placed and who they were fighting.

Thankfully, they had Edgar at the helm and most people who tried to push back against the large fourth year quickly regretted their decision and let the big guy through without any arguing. Once they were able to fight their way through the crowd and finally managed to spot the humongous board that displayed all of the brackets, they looked for their names.

There was a surprisingly large number of students who went undefeated. It wasn’t a shock to see Aubrey, Edgar, and Derek were among them.

After scanning the list, he found all of his friends. Edgar was in Bracket B and he was a little surprised to see that both Derek and Aubrey were in Bracket A.

Julius eventually found his name in the D Bracket. While he wasn’t undefeated, his 4-1 record ensured that he wouldn’t be facing anyone too strong off the bat. According to the board, he would be facing someone named Keldon Branderson.

He wasn’t that worried though. As a matter of fact, he was actually looking forward to seeing and experiencing other studentsʼ skills. While he still didn’t care all that much about winning the tournament, he understood that experiencing various skills would allow him to advance his own skills.

He did head over to the board where the underclassmen tournament was posted. The area over there wasn’t as busy as the main tournament, so he was able to find his way to it without that much fighting.

There was only one real matchup he cared about and he smiled when he spotted their names.

He didn’t know if fate was smiling upon them or not, but when he saw that Joshua and Adam were placed within the same bracket, he grinned widely.

Now they only had to hope that he wouldn’t lose before he faced Joshua, because as long as he didn’t then Joshua would have the perfect opportunity to slaughter the boy in front of everyone.

And he was certain he wasn’t the only person who was hoping to see that.