Path to Transcendence

Chapter 370: Rift Expedition

The good news was that he got the points needed to rank up. He was now a proud D-rank adventurer. However, that wasnʼt the only thing that occupied his mind. Ashton’s offer was still tumbling around in his brain.

There was a newly discovered rift deeper in the forest. Unlike most of the higher-tiered rifts, this one was meant for Tier 3s. It was also a very unique rift. Unlike most of the rifts found in the forest, this one had some restrictions. Much like how the Sacred Realm in the capital worked, the rift would only allow Tier 3s to enter.

This posed a problem for the Adventurer Guild because this rift wasn’t easily cleared. Despite their best efforts, this rift hasn’t been cleared for a long time. Because of the risk of overflowing, they were making the information about the rift public.

At least that was what the guild was telling everyone. He didn’t know if Ashton should have been telling Julius this, but the man mentioned that the rift location had already been leaked to other guilds and organizations. This was just their way of keeping some semblance of control.

An interesting detail of the rift was that there wasn’t a limit to how many could enter. It didn’t matter because it was a solo rift. This meant that each time someone entered, it initiated an independent instance. This severely limited the teams the guild had specifically procured to clear the rift.

Most of the time, rifts were cleared by an entire team. Since this rift was a solo rift, it meant that the supporting members of a team found themselves quite useless. Of course, there were still solo adventurers that the guild had already let attempt the rift, but according to Ashton, this failed as well.

Just this fact alone made Julius want to try it. He liked a challenge. And this seemed like a good way to do it. As mentioned before, he wouldn’t be hiding his strength entirely. Not when it might cost him opportunities.

Ashton was also kind enough to give Julius some preliminary information to help him make a decision. The rift was very similar to a challenge rift in that it had a challenge upon entering. As for the challenge, it was quite unique.

There were ten floors total, each of which you needed to complete before heading off to the next one. The problem was that nobody had been able to get past the eighth floor—at least that was what Ashton said.

On the bright side, you could exit the rift whenever you wished, even if it meant leaving in the middle of a floor. This has significantly reduced the casualties a rift like this might usually have. There were also rewards for how many floors you cleared. Just because you didn’t fully clear all of the floors, didn’t mean you got nothing.

On the contrary, people were still rewarded as long as they completed a single floor. He had a feeling that the guild would have loved to keep this rift a secret for as long as they could have, they could have sat on this treasure trove of a rift to use as a special reward for their own people or exclusive members.

He suspected that if it weren’t for the fact that the rift might disappear when it overflowed, the guild would have been much more serious about keeping it quiet. However, since it could, it was actually good news for many others, including himself.

The downside was that, much like a challenge rift, you wouldn’t be allowed to enter the rift for a second time. That was where the guild had been having issues.

Furthermore, the previous delvers weren’t allowed to speak about the specifics of the floor. They were only allowed to discuss the general details about the rift. This made gathering information to help clear it more effectively, much more difficult, if not outright impossible.

Regardless, he couldn’t lie. This was quite the intriguing opportunity. He recalled how much he had gained from the previous challenge rift he had completed. It was how he managed to get the ruinous effect for his aura. Something that had been very instrumental in increasing his combat prowess.

He found himself already daydreaming of all of the rewards he might gain from a similar rift.

***

When he met up with the others for dinner, they all hung out and discussed what they had done. He learned that they had been delving in one of the Stormcaller’s rifts with the help of one of their members.

He also learned that he wasn’t the only one who was offered this opportunity. Lord Holton had briefed all of them about the rift, and they were all pretty interested.

“What about you, Julius?” Aubrey asked him while plopping down next to him on the couch.

They were all staying at Lord Holten’s estate, deciding that it would be easier than finding an inn or some other place. It was also much safer than any other inn would be. There were many protective enchantments all around the property, and they wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked in the middle of the night.

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“I don’t know yet. I am still deciding,” he said non committedly.

“What’s holding you back?” Edgar asked him with a confused look.

“Are you worried about standing out?” Lily asked.

He shook his head at her. “No, I am not too worried about that. I decided that I am not going to be worrying too much about hiding my strength. I will do what I normally do, but otherwise, it won’t be like my early days at Goldencrest.”

“So what is it then?” Edgar questioned.

“I am more curious about whether or not it is worth it,” he said to him.

“Worth it?” Aubrey asked in confusion. “Why would you be curious about that? Of course it will be worth it,” she said confidently.

He turned toward her with an inquisitive look. “What makes you say that?”

“I mean, you heard how difficult the rift is. Nobody has cleared it yet,” Aubrey said with an eager grin.

“Yeah, but how many of those people who tried were actually elite fighters?” He pointed out.

“Couldn’t have been too bad if the guild supported them,” Lily stated.

He nodded slightly, acknowledging her point. The guild would have definitely given some of their own strong Tier 3s a chance to complete the rift. That also gave him an idea.

“What is stopping the guild from transporting in some powerful scions to come and attempt it then?” He asked all of them.

He saw them pause and think for a moment.

“Nothing. But I also think that is what they are planning for. I suspect they will make a big show of the rift and allow the people to enter at the same time. Perhaps, they make it a competition to see who completes it first,” Derek said with a shrug.

“The guild does stuff like that?” Julius asked.

“All the time. Though they usually don’t always have a rift as unique as this one to do it.”

“Hmm,” he grumbled to himself as he thought about what he was going to do.

***

His indecision didn’t last long, and he went back to Ashton to let him know that he would participate. Something that had the guild examiner weirdly happy about. It wasn’t like the man had any incentive for Julius to enter the rift. Or at least Julius didn’t think so. He honestly had no clue what Ashton’s reasons might be.

He went on a few missions he signed up for for the next few days at the guild. They weren’t anything too interesting. With the unique rift coming up, he didn’t want to lose track of time and miss it accidentally.

He also told the guild about the goblin encampment he came across. He actually got a lot more praise from the employee than he expected. A mission to exterminate these goblins was posted the very same day and he was shocked to see many teams heading out to complete it not soon after, all of whom were very excited to kill some goblins.

It was kind of heartwarming to see so many people come together in their hatred of goblins.

While he waited for the day to arrive, Kuro contacted him. Apparently, the man told his master some things about Julius, which made his master curious about him. Kuro mentioned that he would like to meet Julius if he was okay with it.

He told Kuro that he would have to think about it. He didn’t think the soul mage was a bad person and doubted that Kuro would have a bad master, but he didn’t know if he wanted to get involved with someone likely at Tier 5 or even higher. That wasn’t something he was looking for at the moment. He still wanted to do his own thing.

He was walking with the others toward the guild hall. Today was when the guild would allow people to enter the rift. Once everybody showed up, they would all head out to the rift’s location.

He wasn’t surprised to see a lot of people already there. Everyone seemed to be taking this opportunity to attempt the rift despite its supposed difficulty. Of course, he suspected that most of these people were here to just get a couple of decent rewards from clearing a few floors and had no expectations to actually clear it.

With the help of Lord Holten, they were all already good to go and didn’t have to wait in the enormous line. All they had to do was wait to be escorted through the forest and to the rift.

Luckily for them, it didnʼt take too long for that moment to arrive. He looked on curiously as a huge flying boat of all things appeared, hovering above the walls outside of Peralt. He hadn’t seen it coming despite its enormous size. It likely had some kind of enchantments that helped conceal itself.

He recalled reading about how flying boats and wagons were some of the more common ways of traveling through the sky. There wasn’t anything like airplanes since magic made them unnecessary. But this was his first time actually seeing it with his own eyes, and he was very impressed.

Now that whatever was shrouding it was gone, he could feel how much mana was pumped into it. It was practically glowing from how much mana there was. He wondered if a Tier 5 was controlling this ship. He couldn’t imagine that a Tier 4 would have enough mana to power or control this thing, even with all of the mana crystals likely installed on the boat.

With his space concept, he could also sense the spatial ripples coming from this boat. He was almost certain that it was spatially enlarged on the inside; otherwise, he couldn’t imagine how they all were going to fit inside without multiple trips.

He gently poked Lily. “Is that normal?” He asked.

“Not really, but it also isn’t normal for there to be so many people going on one trip,” she responded.

He looked around at everyone else who was similarly watching the large aircraft hovering in the air. There must have been over a couple of hundred people. All of whom must have gotten permission from the guild to come along. He also spotted that separate groups were already forming within the crowd.

Some were obviously people who belonged to the other guilds and were taking the Adventurer Guildʼs open invitation to participate. With that being said, it should be interesting to watch everything unfold.