Path to Transcendence

Chapter 391: Not Going to Slip Between His Fingers

Doren POV

Doren paid as close attention to the rift as it allowed him. Usually, he would task someone else with doing it, but this was a unique situation. This particular rift wasn’t considered a success and was forgotten as he and the others worked on other projects.

“What made you so interested in this rift after all of this time?” He heard Gale ask him as they both enjoyed a little meal.

“I got notified about some curious developments. It might be nothing, but I wanted to make sure. It’s not like I am too busy at the moment,” he explained simply, not wanting to give too much away.

As much as he trusted her, he wanted to keep this one closer to his chest. After all, this rift had been more of a personal endeavor rather than an actual project he had been asked to do or tasked with. He also knew that she had other relationships with people who were in direct competition with his own work.

She was smart enough and loyal enough that she would not reveal anything that would be detrimental to him, but he liked to prevent as much information from getting out as possible. There was no reason to risk it.

“Wasn’t that the one that we originally tried to make into a testing ground for a guild?” Gale asked with a frown.

“I believe so,” he said, feigning some doubt. But he knew that was exactly the one she was talking about.

“But didn’t we have some issues with the—”

He cut her off. “Yeah, and we decided to turn it into an experimental ground for other, more non-conventional ideas.”

Gale shrugged. “Hmm, I would have thought it would have already collapsed after all this time. It’s kind of surprising that it managed to hold up this long.”

“Yeah, me as well,” he nodded along with her.

“What did you end up doing with it toward the end? I know you mentioned that it had failed, but now I am curious,” Gale asked.

He hid a frown. For some reason, she was being more inquisitive than usual. However, to be fair, he had never told her or the others exactly what he had done to the rift.

“What’s with the sudden curiosity?” He asked with a laugh.

She shook her head. “Honestly, I am just interested in what has gotten your attention. It’s rare to see you put your attention on stuff like this anymore.”

She had a point. As much as he kept up some projects here and there, it wasn’t anything like the past. His passion for such things had dwindled significantly. Other things caught his attention now.

Speaking of the rift, he sensed something odd had occurred. He momentarily ignored Gale as he investigated what was going on.

He took the time to get an overview of what had happened so far. He made sure to check in on the kids who had brought his attention beforehand. He was reasonably confident that most of these kids were scions of prominent families. He believed he even recognized the signature bloodline coming from a few of them.

If he was correct, then someone from House Zenith was currently on the seventh floor. His lightning magic was impressive, and he was well-trained, as one would expect from a family as scary as that one.

There were plenty of others who were at similar stages of the rift. They were clearly talented and were well beyond the typical strength for their ages. He was confident that some of them would get to the eighth floor given some time and effort.

A boy with a special variation of sound magic was tearing through the floors. Doren didn’t know which family or clan he came from, but he clearly had some advanced training. There was another girl who used a fascinating form of transformation magic. She was able to adapt her body to whatever each floor required.

She enlarged her muscles when she fought the boar and became massively strong. Even against a unique opponent like a wraith, she somehow transformed her fingers into something very similar to the wraith’s claws. This allowed her to actually make contact without issue.

There were plenty of talented children in the rift. The guild must have invited many powerful scions and heirs.

However, Doren was somewhat disappointed that the violet-eyed girl hadn’t passed the fifth floor. However, that wasn’t outside of his expectations. People like her usually specialized and excelled in their chosen fields. Something that tested oneʼs physical strength in such a simple way wasn’t easy for them.

He narrowed his eyes and focused, trying to capture as many details as possible from these participants, but it was all in vain.

There was a limit to how much he could observe during the participantsʼ attempt. He was unable to be physically present in the rift while the person was moving through the floors. This meant he couldn’t use his own domain or more powerful skills to scan the people inside, drastically affecting how much information he was able to acquire.

He would have loved to be able to enter and examine certain participants personally, but the rift was unable to maintain its structure if someone as powerful as he entered it. The time dilation effect didnʼt help matters either.

Specific floors in the rift were artificially enhanced to allow powerful individuals to enter. But there was a limit to how many floors like this were available, mainly since the rift was meant for Tier 3s. The mana requirement to strengthen such a floor would mean that the ambient mana would kill or injure most Tier 3s. It would also impact how the rift would evolve. There was even a chance that it would grow into a Tier 4 rift.

Doren and the people originally helping him create this rift did their best to fix this issue and find a workaround. Unfortunately, they could not do anything. It had to do with how the rift was created in the first place.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The rift had been a naturally spawned rift. It was only after it had already been spawned that Doren and the others had repurposed it for their own needs.

However, this particular reason was also why it was considered a failure in the end.

They managed to create rifts entirely from nothing in the past, but that resulted in other problems. As much as they wanted to control every aspect of the rift carefully, creating a realistic and complex rift on their own was tough.

Their self-created rifts were somewhat plain and simple compared to naturally spawned rifts. It was why they still repurposed natural rifts if they required something more complex. Of course, this meant they had to deal with some other issues, but sacrifices had to be made.

Despite these limitations, he was still able to glean a lot of information about these children.

However, he was so focused on these kids that he almost completely forgot the notice that had initially attracted his attention.

There was an anomaly on the eighth floor.

Wait a second… Eighth floor? Someone had already gotten that far? He almost hadn’t caught that detail. Truthfully, he also hadn’t been looking there in the first place.

He took a closer look and realized it was one of the kids who had caught his eye. He had received a notice because this boy had tried to violate the riftʼs set path. He had tried to break through the barrier that prevented participants from going outside the floor’s parameters. Thus, the warning.

He recalled what he had seen from the black-haired child so far. He hadn’t been paying the closest attention, but Doren could recall that the child had taken care of the boar and the wraith, which meant that this young boy had some skill.

He also appeared to have some kind of healing skill that only made his close combat abilities more dangerous.

Impressive, but nothing that caught Doren’s eye. He was too rugged and struggled too much when taking care of the earlier floors to be at the same level as some other participants. The others were more interesting, in his opinion.

Yet somehow, this boy had already gotten to the eighth floor, which was very confusing. Doren quickly shifted his perception to the boy to see what was going on. He tilted his head as he watched this black-haired child stroll up to the demon commanders with calm and steady steps.

There was no hesitation in his movements, and no fear could be detected. That in itself was impressive. The demon commanders were powerful Tier 3s that would beat most elite Tier 3s on their own. In this case, five of them made it much harder.

Yet, the youth released some taunting aura at the demons for some reason. Doren couldn’t understand why he would alert the demons to his presence. He would have had enough time to ambush at least one of them.

However, Doren’s skepticism of the boy’s tactics was silenced when he saw the boy smash these demons into oblivion. With a chilling smile on his face, the boy ripped through these demons with such casual ease that it was hard to connect him with the same boy he had observed on the earlier floors.

It would appear that Doren had been tricked, and this black-haired child had hidden his strength during the rift.

Before he knew it, Doren watched as all of the demons fell without challenging the boy.

Kinetic energy, fire magic, life magic, a weird aura, and powerful Concepts as well. Equally skilled in both ranged and close combat, he mused to himself.

Doren had no idea who had decided to train this child. His skills were all over the place. It was hard to imagine that any noble family or clan would allow such a chaotic path. How would they even begin to train such a skillset?

In Doren’s experience, this was a sign that the boy wasn’t traditionally trained by a House or Clan. He was likely self-trained, which intrigued him even more.

While he hadn’t told the others who worked on the rift before it was considered a ‘failure’, Doren had tinkered with the rift for a different purpose. He wanted to find some interesting talents that others would otherwise overlook or die without a chance to show their potential.

He would then contact some of the groups or powerful individuals he knew with that information. Of course, he would be paid handsomely, but he learned that he enjoyed seeing such talents bloom more than any money could provide.

With that said, he already had someone in mind. The fact that the child had a kinetic affinity would only interest Cain even more.

However, he didn’t jump to conclusions and eagerly watched as the boy walked onto the ninth floor. He already had an idea of what he wanted to do. There was something he wanted to test out. Looking back on it later, it might have been a cruel decision, but he wanted to see how far the boy’s resolve and pride went. He knew just how weird Cain was, and this test would determine if Doren sent him over or not.

Doren sent a flow of mana and manipulated some of the riftʼs parameters. The ninth floor slowly began to change as the influx of energy destabilized the rift. It didn’t matter, though. The rift would have only lasted a bit longer anyway. He didn’t care if that time was cut in half. Satisfying his curiosity was more important right now.

Doren examined closely as the rift’s iteration of Savath began to grow more powerful, revealing a little bit of the demon’s true power. It had taken some convincing, but Doren had convinced Savath to let him make a copy of him to use in the rift as payment for services rendered.

Doren didn’t tell Savath that the clone ended up being more sentient than anticipated. It had become aware that it was a clone. Telling Savath would only serve to piss off the prideful demon. It was a secret better kept hidden.

However, Doren watched this human child go toe to toe with a powerful demon like Savath. A demon who was a whole tier above him. The shroud surrounding the boy’s ability came off as Doren examined with shock and amazement.

Most people had large weaknesses, which was why he had created this rift in the first place. He only wanted to find individuals who didn’t have these significant gaps. They didn’t need to be the best in these areas, but they couldn’t have such glaring weaknesses.

This boy, though, didnʼt seem to have any glaring weaknesses. Every facet of his skills had a purpose: perception, strength, speed, focus, and the boy had a blazing fire of pride.

Otherwise, there was no way the boy would continue to risk fighting Savath. Doren didn’t even think the black-haired child had considered leaving the rift for a single moment.

It likely didn’t cross the child’s mind. Not even when he was tearing his body apart with his own stupidly dangerous techniques. Instead of panicking or desperation, Doren watched with a shake of his head.

You would think that the boy was having the time of his life. It was both infuriating to watch and inspiring. You donʼt often see such attitudes in modern times. There was too much peace and structure in society to cultivate such talents. Doren remembered the days when such people were more commonplace.

Doren had already been planning to remove the boy from the fight before he got hurt. But seeing this fire, he allowed the boy to finish it himself. He wanted to see how far the boy was willing to push himself.

It didn’t matter what happened after that. In Doren’s mind, the boy had already passed his little test. He had already contacted Cain as well. The insane man would be glad to take on another crazy kid.

In the meantime, he was enjoying watching this unhinged boy pull out all the stops to beat the Tier 4 in front of him.

And despite what most people would think when seeing a young child fighting against a powerful Tier 4, Doren couldn’t say that he was too surprised when he saw the boy staggering above a defeated Savath. He was barely able to stand on his own two feet, and his body was held together purely by willpower, but the boy had done it.

Doren wouldnʼt allow this boy to slip through his fingers.