Path to Transcendence

Chapter 501: Body Purification Water

When he had gone back to Aubrey, he was surprised to see her crystal-covered boot slamming against the warrior’s face over and over. He simply stood back and watched as she brutally killed the shield bearer.

She was breathing even harder than she had been during the final moments of her battle with the warrior.

“Did something happen?” He asked carefully.

She spat on the guy. “Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

She kicked him one more time for good measure. “He just regained consciousness and started to spout a bunch of nonsense, so I shut him up,” she admitted.

“Nonsense?”

“Yeah, nasty fucking guy. We should have tortured him and his friends in hindsight,” Aubrey stated viciously.

Julius frowned and looked at the destroyed face of the warrior. He couldn’t help but wonder what the guy had said to her. He knew these guys were vile pieces of shit based on their auras alone, but he didn’t think they were stupid enough to announce those intentions after being beaten like that.

“Did you find anything at least?” He asked, trying to change the topic.

“Yeah, the other guy had a token and a wooden sword. I have no clue what it is meant for,” she said while taking the sword from her storage and tossing it over to him.

He snatched it out of the air and examined it. He ran his finger over the wooden blade and was surprised at how blunt it felt. He knew it was wood, but it almost felt like there was some kind of cushioning enchantment along the edge.

“It might be a training aid,” he said to her and threw it back.

She returned it to her storage ring and shrugged. “Maybe. I will ask someone when we leave here. It’s not like I need it, though. I don’t use swords,” she said with a disappointed sigh and bent down to the body of the shield warrior she had just stomped in. A white orb had appeared over his body as well

“What are you looking for specifically?”

She put a token in her ring and examined the two other items the warrior had before looking at him.

“I was hoping to find some treasures that would help me prepare for Tier 4,” she said to him.

“Like what kind of treasures?” He asked curiously.

“I don’t know. Some treasures that help with my Emblem progression and some body purification stuff. If I can find something that improves the quality of my soul or willpower, that would be pretty nice as well. But I suspect I need to find a challenge rift or get some kind of personalized reward for that,” she explained.

Julius smirked at her.

“What’s that look for?” She asked with a pinch of her lips.

“I might have something for you,” he noted casually.

Her eyes brightened. “Really? What is it?” She asked excitedly.

He continued to grin at her and carefully removed the bottle of lake water he had gotten from Vailon. He didn’t know what kind of water this was, but from what he could tell, it had some potent purifying properties for the body. It had to be quite powerful if it could purify his body to some extent.

He handed her the bottle and explained what it would do.

“Truly?” She asked with excitement.

“Yeah, it even somewhat worked for me. So it should work for you,” he said with a shrug.

She nodded and was about to drink the water, but before she could, he stopped her with his kinetic energy.

“What are you doing? I thought you said it was for me?” She asked with a saddened look.

“Not right now. You need some time to recover. You are in quite rough shape,” he said with a shake of his head, and got closer to her.

“I am okay,” she insisted.

However, he ignored her and placed his hand on her body. His time with Cain and Freya, but the one thing that he was grateful for more than anything else was learning how to heal people from Freya.

While he wouldn’t be the greatest healer anytime soon, he should be able to keep his friends alive and share some of the benefits of his healing skill with them.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Be quiet. I need to focus, or else you might grow a second nose accidentally,” he threatened.

“Second nose?”

”Though I think you would look even better with a second nose,” he commented.

She slapped him hard.

“Hey! Didn’t I just say to be careful. I wasn’t joking about accidentally mutating your body if I lose focus.”

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He said that, but he wasn’t that close to losing concentration. If he could keep a spell structure together while losing half of his limbs and being on fire, then a little slap wasn’t anything to worry about.

He wove a structure of mana into her body, making sure he was extra careful. Random patients were different, but he was much more anxious about healing someone he actually cared about. He used all his senses to assess her condition.

From what he could tell, most of her problems stemmed from sheer exhaustion, both in stamina and mana.

There were a few injuries from when she blocked her opponentʼs powerful swings. A fractured forearm and several large bruises all over her body. But thankfully, nothing more complicated than that.

He gently started to infuse life mana into her, making sure he didn’t overdo it. He really didn’t want to mutilate a part of her body. He had seen how Freya had fixed it for him when he had made a mistake; it wasn’t a pretty procedure, and he would rather he didn’t have to do that to Aubrey.

It took longer than necessary, but everything went perfectly. He could feel her fatigue draining away and her body slowly recovering. All of her injuries were gone, and all that was left was the soreness she felt in her mana channels.

However, there wasn’t much he could do for her on that end.

“When did you learn how to actually heal people?” She asked softly, as if surprised by him. All of the weariness on her dropped away; her entire body was invigorated.

“What? I told you and the others that I learned some healing stuff from Freya,” he said with confusion.

“Yeah, but we thought it was simple stuff. Becoming a trained healer takes years of dedicated study,” she said with wonder as she lifted her arms in the air, inspecting her healed body.

“My concept and skill do a lot of the heavy lifting. I only have to create a structure for everything to go through,” he explained.

“So unfair,” Aubrey muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Make sure nobody bothers me while I drink this,” Aubrey said and quickly took a big swill of the water before Julius could stop her. She didn’t even hesitate; she just drank it without asking anything else about it.

The moment the water hit her tongue, she dropped the canteen and grabbed her throat. She choked as the pain started to build. He had seen a similar reaction with Lyra; apparently, not everyone could handle the water like he did.

He quickly picked up the dropped canteen and put the lid back on. He didn’t want to waste any more of this precious fluid.

As he did this, Aubrey was writhing on the ground, and he ignored her pained groans for a little bit as he examined her body. He wanted to see what kind of changes the water would make and was a bit surprised to see it already doing some work.

He could understand why the water caused them pain. The water was certainly cleansing their bodies; he could sense the liquid coursing through her entire body, but it wasn’t very gentle about it. The water wanted to purify everything it touched, and it wouldn’t be denied.

In a couple of minutes, he watched as the water pushed the impurities it had collected out of Aubrey’s pores, the black gunk leaking onto her skin.

The stench from the gunk was already stinging his nose hairs, and he backed away, holding his nose.

From a distance, he watched as the purification process began to slow. It would appear that she hadn’t taken enough to get everything, but it was a good sign. It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty more.

It took her several minutes to recover from the ordeal. He was even so gracious that he helped clean her up. A little bit of aura and a soft application of flames, and she was brand new.

The flames left her skin a little red, but he sent a pulse of life mana into her.

“What the fuck. That was way more extreme than the other body cleansing treasures I have taken in the past,” she said with a wince.

“Sorry, I would have told you, but you kind of just decided to drink it before I could say anything,” he said apologetically.

“Nah, you’re fine. I just wasn’t expecting such a kick,” she reassured him.

“Did it work pretty well?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Really good. It was quite rough, but the actual effects are extensive. It cleared a lot of my impurities with just that little amount. Can I have some more?”

“You want to drink some more?” He asked her curiously.

“Yeah, might as well. How much of it do you have left?”

“A lot. This canteen can hold enough to fill a large pool,” he told her.

“Oh! Can you fill up a bath for me in that case?” She asked with a pleading expression.

“You want me to make you a bath?”

“If you would be so generous. Plus, I find it hard to believe that you will need much of this water. You mentioned previously that your body should already be pretty purified from your concept and skill. You can donate some to your best friend, right?” Aubrey asked, practically begging him.

As much as he wanted to disappoint her, part of the reason he had been excited to get this water was so his friends could use it. He also had so much that he didn’t know what to do with it. So with a light sigh, he nodded at her.

“Fine, but let’s find somewhere better to do this. It’s probably not the best spot.”

Aubrey’s smile was brighter than the pillar of light in the distance.

***

Luckily for him, he had come prepared. Thanks to his new fancy ring, its size allowed him to carry certain luxuries he hadn’t been able to before. In this case, he had managed to shove a tub into his ring just in case he wanted to bathe in the wilderness.

It came in handy now that he was filling it up with the purifying water.

“Where did you even find this?” Aubrey asked as she watched him prepare the bath.

He did his best to explain what had happened and even mentioned Vailon as well as his new soul resident.

“How do you always get so lucky? A cute turtle and a pool’s worth of special water? This is not fair, the gods themselves favor you,” she griped.

“Aren’t you about to soak in a tub’s worth of it? So if I am blessed, then you are too by association.”

“Fair enough. In that case, thank you for being blessed. Now shoo. I need to bathe,” she motioned at him.

“Nope. I am staying around, I don’t need you dying from this,” he said firmly.

“You are not going to watch me bathe naked, Julius,” she said scoldingly.

“You don’t have to be completely naked. I got some spare clothes if you want to use them. Plus, you have already seen me naked, what’s the hold up?” He asked her, recalling a couple of times when she had caught him indisposed due to training or other unfortunate circumstances.

“That was different. It wasn’t like I was trying to see you naked,” she argued.

“Are you sure? Your eyes strayed for longer than appropriate,” he pointed out.

“Shut up,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

He grinned and tossed her some clothes. “Here, just wear those. They will probably get ruined anyway, but at least it will save you some embarrassment.”

She scoffed but took them anyway.

“Thanks,” she said sarcastically.

“You are very welcome,” he said with a bright grin. He was curious how well this water would work for someone like Aubrey if she were actually to soak in it rather than just drink it.