Path to Transcendence

Chapter 405: Another Favor

Julius and Edwin stopped all of their movements to stare at one another. Julius was tempted to run over and give his old trainer a hug. He knew that Edwin wasn’t the hugging type, but he doubted the cranky old man would reprimand him for doing that.

“What are you doing?” Julius heard the Tier 5 called out impatiently.

Both of them ignored this man. Instead, Julius turned to look at Doren. “Would you be willing to do me a favor?” He asked with a calm and steady gaze on Doren’s swirling blue eyes.

“Another one?” Doren sounded more amused than anything.

“Yes,” he answered firmly.

Doren must have heard the tone of his voice because he took Julius a bit more seriously. “What is the favor?”

Just before Julius was going to answer, he saw the Tier 5 stalk his way toward them. “I asked you what are you—”

The man gasped as his air was taken away from him. Doren stared impassively at the Tier 5. “Did I tell you that you could move?” An oppressive aura drowned the area and Doren teleported next to the Tier 5.

“The next time I have to remind you, it will be the final time. Understood?” Doren said, peering down his glasses to stare at the man with his power brimming over the surface.

The Tier 5 seemed to recognize the position he was in and suddenly became very docile. He looked down and nodded meekly in understanding.

“Good,” Doren said cheerily, and the aura that drowned the area vanished like it was never there. Then the man turned to Julius, curiosity evident on his face.

“So, what is the favor? I don’t want to remind you, but you already owe me,” Doren said simply to Julius.

Julius stared at the Tier 5, who was sweating nervously as he watched them. Doren spotted his gaze and waved him off.

“Don’t worry about him. He can’t hear anything. If you want, I can knock him out for a moment,” Doren offered.

Julius thought about that for a little bit, but he wasn’t the person to answer Doren.

“That would be wonderful, my lord,” Edwin stated respectfully.

However, Doren didn’t even give Edwin a single glance or hint that he acknowledged his words. Instead, he continued to stare at Julius, waiting for a response.

Julius trusted that Edwin had a reason for this and nodded. “Sure, knock him out. I just hope that this won’t get you too involved,” he said with an apologetic wince.

“It’s too late for that. I have already involved myself more than I should have. I might as well do what I want,” Doren said, sounding not as bothered as Julius expected. He had made it sound to Julius that getting too involved would be a big issue, so Julius thought that he would have been more upset about being wrapped in this even more.

The Tier 5, who was staring in their direction, suddenly collapsed to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. There wasn’t a single hint of mana or aura from Doren as he casually knocked out someone much stronger than Julius.

“Okay, so what is it?” Doren asked.

Julius paused for a moment as he watched Edwin remove his face covering and gave him a bright smile. He didn’t even hesitate to [Void Step] over and wrap the stern butler in a tight hug. Edwin didn’t even complain either. He just wrapped his arms around Julius just as tightly.

Julius smiled, holding back the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

It was only after a minute or so that Edwin finally pushed him away and looked at Doren, who was looking at the two of them.

It didnʼt take Julius long to tell Doren about Edwin and how he had trained Julius when he was younger. He also told him that they had been separated after being attacked by Clan Genshen and others.

Doren didn’t interrupt and listened patiently. Once he was done, he looked at Edwin with a slight grin as if something finally made sense.

“So you’re the reason why he’s like this, huh?”

Edwin shook his head empathically. “Nope, he was like this long before I started to teach him. I remember when he used to run around shoving anything he could find into his orifices.”

“Hey! Don’t make it sound like that,” Julius spoke up defensively.

All Edwin did was grin and shake his head with amused exasperation.

***

After their heartfelt reunion, Edwin immediately acted just like Julius remembered. “Why are you here?” Edwin asked him with a narrowing of his stern eyes.

“What do you mean? I am here for the rift expedition. You should know that since you and your buddy were attacking us,” Julius said accusingly.

“He’s not my buddy,” Edwin said, clearly offended by that.

“But you were still attacking us,” Julius pointed out.

“Yes, and I already told you why,” Edwin said, looking away, showing a hint of guilt.

Julius grumbled and looked at the still-ongoing battle around them. Apparently, Edwin had a good reason for being here, and despite his friends being attacked, Julius couldn’t find much fault in Edwin’s actions.

Edwin was working for the Conclave to infiltrate their network. He had been making pretty good progress up their ranks as well; unfortunately, this little reunion had put a wrench in his plans.

“More importantly, why in the hell’s name are you already Tier 3?” Edwin asked, sounding like a disappointed father.

Julius tilted his head at Edwin. “What do you mean, how? I just advanced,” he answered casually, knowing that his tone would annoy Edwin, and he was absolutely correct. Edwin held back his annoyance with his typical pursing of his lips.

Oh, how Julius had missed this. He still savored the times when he would tease Edwin just like this in the past.

Edwin didn’t seem amused. “Did you forget about what I told you about advancing too early?”

Julius didn’t meet his gaze. “Of course not!” He said unconvincingly.

Edwin only needed to give him one look for Julius to crumble. “Okay, maybe a little, but my foundation is good, trust me,” he assured Edwin.

Edwin was clearly going to argue or say something but ultimately held back.

Doren chose this time to intervene. “So, what have you two decided?” He asked the two of them, sounding like he was enjoying this moment.

After Julius had explained the situation to Doren, they all realized that they needed to take action. However, they had yet to decide what they would do.

“Well, it is going to be pretty obvious that something is going on. Tuan is an ass, but he isn’t stupid. He will be able to put some things together,” Edwin explained.

“What if we kill him?” Julius offered, ignoring the alarmed and somewhat weirdly proud look from Edwin.

“If we kill Tuan, the Conclave is definitely going to suspect something is up.”

“Yeah, but he also tried to kill me and my friends, so I don’t want him just to walk free,” Julius said.

Doren interrupted him. “I am not killing that man for you,” he said firmly.

Julius immediately understood that he was serious about this and didn’t try to argue.

“So what then? Are you going to go back to them?”

“I am pretty close to finding out what they really want, so I would like to keep on infiltrating.”

“And if Tuan is suspicious of you?” Julius pointed out.

“I will find some excuse, don’t worry about me. I can always tell him that Doren ordered me to take it easy on you,” Edwin stated with a teasing grin.

“Easy? Like you have ever taken it easy on me,” Julius scoffed.

Edwin smiled when he saw that Julius was feeling competitive. “He doesn’t know that. But it will make our behavior more believable.”

Julius couldn’t really find much fault in his logic. He knew logically that having Edwin spy on the Conclave was a very useful thing. He didn’t realize how Edwin got past the soul oaths and stuff, but the fact that he was already in a good position to help take down the Conclave and, by proxy, House Greyson, was very attractive. An opportunity that he didnʼt think they could afford to give up.

While he and Edwin discussed some of the finer details of their plan, he suddenly shot his attention to the newcomer approaching them.

As they were talking, the Tier 5 from the Adventurer’s Guild had finally beaten the lightning beast. The beast had activated some last-ditch ability and transformed into a pure bolt of lightning.

The cat-like monster had been wreaking havoc in the area. He saw Tier 4s get burnt to a crisp hundreds of feet away just by being touched by a little spark. His skin was practically tingling even from this distance. The other surviving members of the expedition were backing away as well. They knew better than to stay within the reach of the lightning.

It was bad enough that the monster had taken complete control of the fight. The cat was pressuring the Tier 5 so badly that it was close to killing him.

It would have likely killed him if not for the sudden and shocking appearance of another Tier 5 hidden away in the ship. A woman wearing nothing but shorts and a plain T-shirt saved Simon. She tanked the powerful lightning like it was a light breeze and ripped the monster into two with her bare hands, not giving a fuck about the powerful ripples of lightning crackling over her body.

He knew right away that she was scary. She might have even been at the same level as Marcus. It was hard to believe, but she had taken care of that lightning beast so casually and with such speed.

That same woman was already heading over to them. Her auburn hair glimmered in the light, and her eyes never left Doren the entire time.

He didn’t know if Doren was even hiding from her or if she had a skill that allowed her to sense him. Either way, she was rapidly approaching.

When she finally did, she gave a hard experimental kick to the Tier 5. When she was satisfied with whatever she was testing, she turned to look back at Doren.

“Why is someone like you here?” She asked Doren straightforwardly.

“What? Am I not supposed to be here?” Doren stated with a tilt of his head.

“Only a small number of people know of this location,” she said calmly.

“Apparently, enough people that someone leaked the location to these attackers,” Julius muttered before he could catch himself. He was still somewhat annoyed that someone had been trying to kill his friends. Edwin got a pass because he was Edwin, but everyone else was fair game.

“And you are?” The woman turned to him with a little hint of interest on her face, shockingly not that offended by his tone.

“Nobody of importance,” he said dismissively.

She didn’t believe him for a moment and took one step to appear in front of him. It wasn’t even a teleportation skill. She had moved with pure speed.

“Just so you know, we wanted them to attack,” she said to him, surprising him with her answer.

“Allowed? A lot of young people died, just so you know,” He scoffed.

She looked at him with a slight frown. “Yeah, there were many more monsters and enemies than expected, but still, there were only a few deaths. I managed to save most people who were close to dying.”

“Save?” He asked with another scoff, pointedly looking at the dead bodies all over the field. He didnʼt know if she was blind or not, but many of the people were clearly dead.

“Yes, they are close to death, but I was able to use a skill that prevents them from taking the final step into death’s embrace. Thankfully, most of them were Tier 3, so it was a simple task.”

Julius didn’t understand what she was saying. How did she manage to save the people he believed had died? They weren’t moving according to his senses. Even their mana was motionless.

However, she seemed very confident, and so he took a closer look. It took him longer than he was proud of, but he felt a weird sense of life mana coming from the dead bodies. Furthermore, he wasn’t able to feel any mana coming from them because there was another subtle shell around their bodies. It felt similar to the magic he had sensed from Stella, which meant it was likely time magic. Perhaps it was some sort of stasis spell.

“Are you a healer?” He asked.

She shrugged. “In a way, so don’t worry about them. I will deal with them soon,” she said without much urgency to go help them now.

He was going to mention this to her, but she walked over to him and prodded his aura.

“I saw you handle those Tier 4s. How did you do that?” She asked while looking at him like an intriguing animal in the zoo. It was sort of how Doren looked at him when they first met. He didn’t like that she had seen his fight.

“I got help from a powerful item and him,” Julius lied and pointed at Doren, deflecting some of the attention away from himself.

“Hmm,” she said, definitely not convinced by his response. However, she had more pressing concerns to attend to and set her curiosity aside before addressing Doren again. Julius took this time to try and disappear from her sight, edging toward Edwin’s back.

He was already thinking of ways to get out. However, for the time being, he just watched as she asked Doren some questions of her own, trying and failing to get that much info from the blonde man.