Path to Transcendence

Chapter 502: Floating Island

If there was one thing that Julius knew about Aubrey, it was that she was as stubborn as a mule. Once she put her mind to something, nothing would stop her from accomplishing it. However, that same mindset was currently hurting her.

She only had half of her body in the water, but the purification was already becoming too great. He had created a larger barrier around them so that nobody would disturb them, but her cries were hard to hear.

He did his best to infuse her with some healing magic, just to take the edge off. But there was a limit to what he could do for her. It wasn’t fun to watch his friend endure all of this pain. He had several skills and concepts that helped him deal with pain. But she didn’t.

However, despite the pain, she stayed stubborn and didn’t allow him to pull her out. She gripped the tub so hard that she was bending the strong metal. On the bright side, the water was working quite quickly.

He could already see many impurities being released from her pores. The smell was just as nasty as usual, but it was funny to see the water attacking the black gunk the moment it came out of her skin.

It was like acid eating away at the gunk and the remnants that were floating down to the bottom.

Her face was bright red as she tried not to break down completely. She was barely breathing, holding her breath as if that would prevent the pain.

It was only after ten minutes of this torturous procedure that her cries quieted down, and he saw her face slowly relax. Fewer impurities were coming out of her pores, so he suspected that the worst was over. However, he could tell that the water was still purifying her body.

“Fuck, that was awful,” she finally grumbled out.

He didn’t say anything to her and simply touched her shoulder, letting his life mana flow throughout her. She sighed in satisfaction as his healing magic went to work. The water had natural healing properties, but he believed that only worked for people like him who were already purified.

“How does your body feel?” He asked her.

“Like someone just burned my insides with hot magma,” she replied.

“Sounds like it worked then,” he said with a smirk.

She tried to slap him, but her movements were sluggish.

“You look prettier,” he added.

She perked up. “I do?”

He nodded, feeling a bit of envy ripple through him. She was already gorgeous. There was a good reason why Liam was obsessed with her. She was one of the prettiest girls at Goldencrest, and now she had somehow become even cuter. Her once beautiful skin had become truly flawless. There wasn’t a single blemish in sight. It wasn’t fair.

He wasn’t bad looking himself, but he felt like a toad when standing next to her. Now it was even worse. He sighed about how unfair life could be. It wasn’t like he had gotten a makeover when he swam in the lake before. All he got was an angry turtle that bit his toe off.

***

It took Aubrey all day to recover from the ordeal. He didn’t mind all that much. The last two days had already been way too busy. He enjoyed fighting, but it felt like everywhere they turned, someone or something wanted to kill them.

A break was nice.

During this time, he made sure to give her constant bursts of life mana. Even Drasil decided to come out and help her, much to Aubrey’s delight. She lay down on a cushioned bed from her own storage ring as she cuddled with Drasil, feeding the gluttonous spirit with some snacks.

Seraphyne didn’t want to come out. She didn’t seem particularly trusting of Aubrey yet, so she decided to stay in his soul space.

As for Aubrey, she took frequent sips of the water and ate food from his lunch box, looking at him with a pout.

“How did you get that item? I feel like everything that comes out of that thing is a minor treasure,” she said with disgust.

“What? You don’t like it?” He asked her.

“No, I hate how fast I am recovering just from eating a simple roll of bread,” she said with an intense look at the roll in her hands.

“Well, if that is how you feel. You are more than welcome to give it back or give it to Drasil. I am sure he would love it,” he told her.

They both looked at Drasil, who must have heard what Julius said. The little spirit was holding his hands up in a begging gesture for the roll in her hands. He had already finished his own and wanted Aubrey’s.

Julius could tell that she didn’t want to give up the roll, but the adorableness of Drasil won her over, and she split her roll in half, giving it to the spirit with a reluctant expression.

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Drasil whistled in appreciation and gave her a small hug with his tiny arms.

Julius, on the other hand, spent most of his time split between practicing his skills and examining the items he had acquired over the past two days. Whenever he got bored with one, he would switch to another. He kept that routine up all night and only slept for a couple of hours.

He didn’t want to get snuck up on by any ambitious competitors or monsters.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and by the time morning came around, they finally left their little cave and went on their way deeper into the secret realm.

***

The two of them flew on his little board. He suspected that Aubrey liked the board more than he did. She was constantly asking him to go faster, but no matter how much she asked, he couldn’t. The item had a hard cap on its speed, and he couldn’t move any faster, no matter how much he wanted to.

They came across a few monsters, but Julius let Aubrey handle them. She wanted the practice, and the monsters were easily dealt with since they weren’t particularly problematic—nothing like the gray monsters he had faced prior.

They also came across a good number of people. Apparently, it was quite a common tactic to team up with people because a good number of the people he spotted were with at least a couple of others.

There was even one large group that consisted of almost a dozen people. Julius and Aubrey steered clear of them; they didn’t want to risk starting another fight or getting into any confrontations in general.

By the fourth day, they finally started to see more action. Not only were there more monsters to fight, but more people. Additionally, Aubrey had found another token, which upped her count to four. They each needed one more before they had the required amount.

Sadly, they didn’t find their friends, but they still kept their eyes peeled. The odds of finding Derek and Edgar would get higher the closer they got to the pillar of light. Hopefully, they will reunite with them sooner or later.

As they traveled deeper into the realm, they spotted the occasional scuffle from these emerging groups. However, they didn’t let it get out of control. It seemed there was an unspoken rule about starting shit. If they fought, they let the people arguing figure it out for themselves. The others just sat on the sidelines.

Julius suspected it had a lot to do with the many people nearby. They likely didn’t want to be left weakened after fighting a group, only to be beset by another group trying to take advantage of their weakness.

Julius made sure to avoid large crowds, but that became much harder the closer they got to the pillar of light. It looked like everyone was gathering around this area, and it was impossible to avoid everyone.

He looked up and let the brilliant golden white light of the pillar illuminate his eyes. He truly appreciated the size of the pillar of light now that he was closer to it.

It was massive. The light reached all the way up to the heavens and spanned the length of a small mountain. Not only that, but the scenario started to change. Instead of the relatively flat plains, the environment was becoming much more varied.

In many ways, that didn’t make sense either. For example, he saw a huge river flowing straight through a desert-like area. Flowers and vibrant green grass covered the sandy shores. Even more impressive were the large floating cliffs off in the distance.

He couldn’t see anything attached to them, but he spotted several large waterfalls flowing from off their bases, into a vast lake below.

There were already dozens of people heading up to these cliffs. A rare few were using some kind of flying skill or item. Some of the items were pretty cool.

He saw a pair of shoes that created platforms for the person to run on in the air. Someone else had a chestplate with wings on the back that allowed them to soar high. Some people even tried creating a staircase out of earth to maneuver their way up there. They probably thought there were some lovely treasures hidden in those cliffs. To be honest, Julius thought the same thing.

“You want to go up there?” Aubrey asked him.

He glanced at her. “What? Are you curious as well?”

“A little bit. We might find some more tokens there at least. I feel like the closer we get to the center of this realm, our chances of finding tokens become more limited,” she admitted.

He agreed with her. He would much rather get his five tokens before the time limit was up or before it even got to that point.

“You want to go take a look?” He asked her.

She tilted her head at him. “How are we going to get up there, though?”

He hid a smirk. He hadn’t told her about his flight abilities yet. He had developed them during the rift expedition, and none of them had seen his ability because he went to train under Cain immediately afterward.

And while he wanted to hide his flight abilities, he didn’t see a reason why he couldn’t shoot himself straight into the sky. It wasn’t like blasting oneself into the air was considered flight. A lot of people could likely do it, just maybe not to the extremes that he could.

Better yet, he had an idea that would help him hide his flight abilities even more. He could use the board he and Aubrey were hovering on to act like an actual flying device. If anyone below saw him flying, they would likely assume it was because of the board, not because he was carefully maneuvering his kinetic energy.

Kinetic energy was nice in that way. It was hard to detect, and only those with a kinetic affinity could perceive it with any true accuracy.

“I can get us up there,” he said confidently.

“I thought this thing could only go so high?”

He grinned and explained to her about his flight ability as well as his desire to keep it under wraps for the time being. With so many influential scions competing, restricting the amount of information they gained from him would be a prudent precaution.

For example, if someone were to know that he had [Void Step] and could teleport outside of a spatially contained area, they might find another countermeasure that he didn’t expect. It was the same idea as flying, but he wanted to save it as a surprise in case he needed to fight someone in the air.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Send us up,” she stated with a shake of her head.

He smiled. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, blast away. I’m ready.”

He laughed and grabbed her tightly. Then, while they were stuck to the board, he gathered some kinetic energy, and once he got enough, he released it with a simple flex of his mind.

Aubrey wheezed at the sudden change of inertia, her stomach likely dropping to her feet. The two of them tore up to the sky. One person was gasping for air while the other was giggling like a kid.