Path to Transcendence

Chapter 372: Entering The Unique Rift

Eris POV

She recognized Lily Violet right away. While most people might recognize the name, they might not know what the young Violet Scion looked like. However, in her case, she had seen Lily before during one of the social gatherings her parents brought her to. It was only about two years ago, but the girl looked very much the same.

She had obviously matured, but those violet eyes were a big hint. While there were plenty of other people in the world with purple eyes, House Violet was definitely one of the most famous.

Eris realized that this was a boon and stiffened her spine before deciding to go up and talk to her. She felt more confident knowing that she only had good intentions toward Lily. Her parents had drilled into her about the people from House Violet always knowing who was there to manipulate them and who were good people.

Thankfully, Lily was much more kind and welcoming than Eris could have expected, especially since Lily was aware that Eris recognized her. The Violet Scion had sent a psychic message to her, asking Eris not to say anything to her team about her.

Despite how much she wanted to share the information with her friends, she understood that it would be prudent to keep the secret to herself and not anger the powerful noble girl.

With that being said, it was nice to see that Lily Violet wasn’t that different from a regular girl their age. She didn’t put on any airs or really any bit of arrogance. She found herself having a surprisingly pleasant time just talking to the influential girl. Not something she would have imagined happening mere hours ago.

When she had seen Lily across the room at the event a couple of years ago, she felt like the other girl was unapproachable. Even though she was a noble herself, her family’s status was nowhere near House Violet when it came to power.

She always heard good things about House Violet, but rumors were just that… rumors. People always liked to say that this House or this Clan were good. But Eris found that this was rarely true for everyone.

As Lily was talking with some of her other friends, Eris took the time to inspect the other girl’s friends as well. The first person she took note of was the big muscular dude. He looked pretty scary sitting there all silent and menacing. At least that was what she initially believed until she heard him speak. Right away she knew that he was a big softy. She didn’t recognize who he was though.

He was definitely their groupʼs frontline, though. She couldn’t imagine any other role he might have filled.

She then spotted the other girl, who was busy speaking with Aya. She had really pretty, long, luscious hair and a perfect figure that was both slim and curvy in the right places. She also had this confidence about her that drew everyone’s eyes toward her. It made her distinctly aware of her own shortcomings as a woman.

Next to her was a tall handsome guy, she could have sworn he looked familiar but she couldn’t remember for the life of her. It was likely he was some kind of noble from a house affiliated with House Violet. He had that stereotypical noble look about him.

What she noticed, though, was the dangerous feeling she got from him. Despite his aura being politely restrained, she was able to sense that he was strong. She and the rest of her team were already bronze B-rankers, almost at A-rank, which said a lot about this guy. She was proud of her strength, too. She knew that she wasn’t good at a lot of things, but she knew she was a good fighter at the very least.

Just ask her team about her cooking skills. They would be the first ones to tell you how bad she was at cooking. The last time she had tried to cook while they were camping, everyone had to use a healing potion because she had poisoned them. They never let her forget that.

She frowned as she almost completely overlooked the last person in Lily Violet’s group. It was a boy who looked quite a bit younger than the rest of them. If not that she had personally seen them interacting with him, she would have believed he was someone totally separate from their group.

His aura indicated a newly advanced Tier 3, which made sense considering how young he looked—he might have been only around sixteen years old. However, she paused and noticed the chair he was sitting on.

It was a wonderfully created construct. She wasn’t the most talented when it came to mana manipulation. That honor went to Aya, their team’s primary mage and resident expert when it came to anything mana.

Although it was weird that Aya hadn’t taken notice of the construct yet, granted, she was distracted talking with the girl named Aubrey, but Eris half expected her to sense the construct right away.

It wasn’t how much mana was used in the construct that impressed her. It was the fact that she could see how soft the mana was. Unlike most people who created constructs, this young boy somehow created an intricate block of mana that provided a nice bit of cushion.

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Maybe he was more focused on a crafting path? It was hard to say.

However, the boy never spoke to her or her team during the entire time they interacted with them. That wasn’t that abnormal, though. He might just be shy.

She couldn’t think about it for much longer. She had to focus on the rift delve in front of her. It was going to be quite a challenge for her and while she knew that she shouldn’t be expecting to be the one to clear it, she had high hopes for herself. Compared to the rest of her team, her skill set allowed her to be much more independent.

She had all of the necessary skills to survive on her own. But the rest of her team all had some sort of weakness that was usually covered when they worked together.

For example, Koenn would likely find it difficult to do well during this event. He had a highly specific tank role that would let him take damage and fight against powerful enemies, but would limit how well he might do if there were a large number of monsters.

Frink would do decency well. He was a standard swordsman, but he lacked perception-based skills to help him detect traps or ambushes.

Cole would likely have the most difficult time out of all of them. He was very good at supporting the team, but lacked powerful offensive tools when he was on his own.

Aya, despite her ridiculous damage output, would likely find herself overwhelmed the moment the enemies got within reach. Close combat was not the mage’s forte and honestly, it normally was never a problem.

Eris was the only one who had a good balance of everything. If there was one person on their team who would succeed, she liked to believe that she was the one with the highest chance.

***

Julius POV

It was finally his turn to enter the rift. He walked up to the rift with a calm grin on his face. He knew that as long as he didn’t mess up, he had a good chance of clearing all of the floors. He was just that confident in his strength and skills.

Simon, the Tier 5 overseeing this whole thing, watched him closely. More closely than the man had done with the other people.

He didn’t pay it too much attention, though, and reached out his hand to touch the rift. He felt the familiar tug of the portal and allowed himself to get sucked in.

***

When he opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a dark room with nothing around him. However, he was more focused by the notification he received.

Notice: You have entered a unique rift. In order to successfully clear this rift, you must complete all ten floors in one attempt. At the end of your attempt, you will be given a reward based on how many floors you have completed. You will also be allowed to end your attempt and leave the rift whenever you wish. Simply think about canceling your attempt and you will be removed from the rift. However, any unfinished floors will not be calculated toward your rewards.

Julius read this over and nodded his head as it was consistent with what the guild had told all of them.

Do you wish to begin your attempt?

He didn’t hesitate and accepted the notice with an eager grin on his face. The rift surrounded him with its energy once more and he found himself getting transported.

This time he arrived in a forest very much like the one he had just come from. The only difference was this time around, his view was obscured by another notice.

First Floor Clear Condition: Defeat all of the goblins and their leader.

He wasn’t that shocked at the simple task. After all, it was still only the first floor. He was hoping that the later floors would be a little more complex and challenging. He had some stuff he wanted to improve upon and some strong opponents would do him some good.

For now, he would get this floor over with. He had never actually taken care of the previous goblin encampment he had come across and was feeling like this was the perfect opportunity to make things right.

Luckily for him, the goblins weren’t that far away. The rift had spawned him right in front of the camp and he was able to sense dozens of the ugly monsters walking around. They hadn’t noticed him as of yet, but he was sure that that would change quickly.

Especially since he wasn’t planning to take care of them quietly. He had a more efficient method in mind.

So with a confident smile on his face, he stalked toward the camp while gathering mana. He made sure to infuse as much of his Sharpness Concept into his mana as well. He had not forgotten his plan to improve the Concept.

He also reminded himself not to use [Barrier of Severance] during this period. He didn’t want to level up the skill and reach the threshold accidentally. He would rather wait until he got an appropriate, or rather a stronger, Concept to go along with the skill.

He didn’t try to be fancy. Sometimes it was more efficient to just keep his mana manipulations simple, especially when his opponents had no way to protect themselves with their own Concepts.

He let out a soothing breath as he formed a dozen discs of mana. He hadn’t used this method in a while, so it took him longer than it would if he were using spikes. But it served as a potent reminder that he maintained his skills in creating other shapes.

He didn’t know if it was his mana or because he had gotten close enough, but the goblins soon shouted out in alarm as they sensed him. A cry rose up throughout their ranks and Julius watched as a few dozen poorly armed goblins ran out to face him.

They were still Tier 3, which meant they weren’t the weakest of their species, but compared to Julius, they might as well be. He didn’t even blink as he sent out the discs of highly sharpened mana at the monsters.

These sharp constructs tore through the goblin’s ranks with such ease, it was like cutting through paper. Ten discs were shot out and ten goblins were killed. He made sure to keep the discs around as well, he used a bit of kinetic energy to turn them around and swung them at the goblins from behind. He elongated them a little bit, and was quite satisfied when he took out another dozen goblins.

He didn’t bother to examine their shocked looks of fear on their face. He simply used the discs again to wipe out the remaining stragglers.

In a matter of moments, the previously aggressive and noisy goblins were eviscerated. All that was left on the field was silence and a bunch of mutilated green bodies.