Path to Transcendence

Chapter 378: Hello

He found a path down to the valley and calmly made his way down. He didn’t bother to hide his presence, either. His confidence that he would be able to protect himself if anything went wrong helped matters as well.

It was only when he got closer to one of the trolls in the fields that it took notice of him. He saw its head whip up and looked at Julius with confusion. For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other without moving.

“Hello,” Julius smiled brightly at the troll and waved his arm in greeting.

Unfortunately, this only seemed to make the troll even more wary, and before Julius could stop it, the troll turned around toward its comrades and yelled out something in a guttural language.

The other trolls who hadn’t noticed Julius yet all turned to their friend and spotted Julius waving at them. Unlike the first troll, the others didn’t seem to be hesitant at all. They immediately turned their heads and ran back toward the center of the village.

He was curious as to what they were doing. He looked over at the first troll, who was still staring at Julius with wide eyes. It hadn’t gone along with its friends and stayed where it was.

He sensed some movement coming from the center of the camp and was welcomed by the rest of the trolls. He wasn’t surprised to see that the trolls had armed themselves. Some of them had spears and other weapons, but the rest of them carried large rocks in their hands.

He waved toward them again with a good-natured grin. However, they must have believed this to be some kind of threatening gesture because he heard one of the larger trolls grunt something to the others and saw the trolls with rocks cock back their arms.

His smile wavered for a second. Then fell off his face completely as a barrage of massive stones soared toward his forehead. He didn’t even flinch as he created a barrier in front of him that shielded him. He also made sure to absorb as much kinetic energy as he could from these rocks. So when they slammed against his barrier, they didn’t have that much momentum left.

He gave the trolls a disappointed shake of his head.

“So this is what I get for trying to be peaceful?” He muttered more for his benefit than anyone else.

He sighed as he spotted the large troll, who ordered the attack. The troll picked up a spear and channeled mana throughout its body. It coiled its lower legs and placed the spear behind its head before throwing it with impressive force at Julius.

He shook his head with disappointment before reaching out with his kinetic energy and absorbing the spearʼs force, slowing it down just enough for him to snatch it out of the air with his hand. He gave it a little experimental twirl and infused as much kinetic energy into it as he could.

The wood of the spear was surprisingly good at channeling mana, but he gave it a little help with his own mana and aura. This heavily enforced the shaft and let the spear contain more kinetic energy than it otherwise would have.

Then, in the exact same way the troll threw it, he coiled his legs and cocked back the spear in his right hand. Then, like a crossbow, he slung the spear back at the troll. The moment he released it, he felt a shockwave from the air, and the troll could barely react as the spear tore right through its chest and sent it flying backwards into one of the thatched buildings.

He sighed loudly. He had been half hoping that the defeat condition meant he didnʼt actually have to kill the trolls. He guessed he must have been thinking too optimistically.

This seemed to be a signal to the rest of the trolls because he watched as the dozens of trolls dashed toward his position, anger radiating in their green eyes. He let out a grin and rolled out his shoulders as he met them head-on.

The first troll he met had a big hammer and was swinging it right at Julius’s torso. Julius calmly stepped into the swing and siphoned the kinetic energy. He then proceeded to jump up and slam his palm into the skull of the troll with a loud crack. A big chunk of flesh was torn from its cheekbone and left a bloody hole in its face.

He knew immediately that the strike wouldn’t be enough to kill it, not if these trolls had healing abilities like the previous ones he had faced. And he was right.

As he was in the middle of kicking another troll in the face, he watched as the first troll’s skull quickly regenerated its missing flesh.

He took this opportunity to use his Sharpness Concept. He infused his kinetic energy with Severing Will and smashed his fist into another troll. This time, he was excited to see that the wound he caused lasted much longer.

As he had suspected, the Concept made the wound much more difficult to heal, much like his own prior experiences when dealing with an attack infused with a Concept.

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Regardless, these trolls clearly had Concepts of their own, and the wound, albeit more slowly, still healed given some time.

He didn’t really care that much. He was much too busy not to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of trolls currently attacking him. The fact that he wasn’t able to easily kill any of them made it much more difficult. He wasn’t able to slowly put them down. By the time he got a chance, he was already getting mobbed by three other trolls.

A big reason why he wasn’t in a much worse situation was due to the fact that the trolls weren’t that fast. They also didn’t have many abilities other than their strength and healing abilities to fight with.

He did find himself having fun, though. It was chaotic and brutal. Thatʼs exactly what he enjoyed in a fight. He was constantly having to pivot around, and he took advantage of small activations of [Void Step] to reposition slightly. This allowed him not to get boxed in by the trolls.

He still took hits, of course, but each punch he received from a troll powered up his own kinetic attacks. He was also getting a weird feeling regarding his Sharpness Concept. He was trying to take some inspiration from the wraith and how it managed to slice through his mana barriers with such ease. He still didn’t know exactly how the creature did it, but the memory of it fueled his own attacks.

He occasionally used his kinetic restriction technique to hold a troll in place while he attacked its comrade.

It took some time, but he finally managed to kill one of them. He had to use his restriction technique on three trolls at once and use [Void Step] to reposition on top of the troll, but a flying knee with a load of accumulated kinetic energy tore the entire head from the monster’s shoulders.

The Sharpness Concept he infused into his kinetic energy helped him break through the natural defenses of the troll. Otherwise, even with his Force Concept helping, he doubted he would have been able to remove the entire head of the troll in one blow.

He had learned when he had fought the trolls in the past that destroying the head was the only actual way to kill a troll confidently. He didn’t fully understand it at the time, but now that he was a little more experienced, that made fighting them much more annoying. It also didn’t help that these trolls seemed to be quite a bit stronger than the ones he fought before.

His initial thought of them being a more advanced species appeared to be correct.

Of course, he likely could have killed all of them with his constructs, but that wasn’t the point of coming to the Endless Forest. He needed to improve his other abilities. There was so much untapped potential regarding his kinetic energy and other Concepts.

He didn’t just want to rely on his more powerful skills for the rest of his life. Not when a little sweat and effort could fix that.

The trolls were relentless. Much like himself, they had a healing skill that allowed them to exert themselves far beyond what was normal. That was why even ten minutes into the fight, everyone was still going just as hard as they had initially.

Of course, during this time, Julius had thinned them out slightly. But in all honesty, it wasn’t that much. He hadn’t even killed a dozen trolls yet. Their persistence and ability to survive were quite admirable.

While he was focused on not getting mauled, he wanted to try something. With his recent success in infusing his kinetic energy with his Sharpness Concept, he wanted to see if he could infuse his kinetic energy while he was using his restriction technique.

He already did it with his ruinous aura, and it had quite a vicious effect on his enemies. But he was curious if he could physically cut up the trolls as well. That would be interesting to test out.

And that was precisely what he ended up doing. He didn’t care about the punches to the back for a moment as he tried to figure out a way. His body was already covered in bruises at this point, and a couple more wouldnʼt kill him. It was pretty interesting when he found infusing his kinetic energy with the Concept easier than expected.

This technique already used two of his Concepts, which was why he was surprised at how simple it was. Previously, he had a hard time using more than two Concepts in a single technique. He grinned widely. Perhaps this was a sign that he was improving.

He concentrated and managed to charge the kinetic energy he was using to press against the trollʼs bodies. It was very similar to how the kinetic energy had been trying to rip apart his body, but against the trolls, it was a lot more visible. It looked like small little shards of glass were ripping their skin apart.

It wasn’t anything too dangerous, though. Their wounds were basically superficial. Even more so when you took into account their ability to heal. The main thing he accomplished was just pissing them off more.

But it was nice to see that his idea somewhat worked. He was curious how well it would combine if he created small mana constructs for this technique, almost like he was actually creating small granules of sand and then infusing them with his Sharpness Concept to tear his opponents apart.

He shook his head. He could focus on that later. For now, he should pay attention to what’s in front of him.

Speaking of, he felt a large blow smack him against the back of his head. Apparently, his restriction technique had failed to restrict a troll, and it proceeded to slam its meaty fist into the back of his head.

The good news about his new kinetic restriction technique was that the sharpness helped limit their movement quite well. He didn’t know if it was the pain or the added Concept, but he was able to hold a lot more trolls without that much effort.

It gave him the extra breathing room to deal with this lone troll. And he clenched his fist and swung it at the troll. He watched as he crushed the monster’s skull into small fragments.

He grunted as he felt the troll’s he was holding back to lurch forward to help their friend, his willpower struggled to hold on and he felt something wet flowing down his nose, but he maintained control.

He then turned to the rest of them with the same bright smile he had when he first walked up to them.

There were still plenty of them left, and he had some new ideas he wanted to try out against them. It wasnʼt every day he had training partners who could take as much punishment as he could. This was an exciting moment for him.