Path to Transcendence

Chapter 542: Truly a Monster

Julius cracked his neck, stretched his arms, and allowed his spine to realign. He had made another small mistake and paid the price. The mana during the last attempt had collapsed on itself and twisted into an ugly mess. His spine had been punished for his miscalculation. It had buckled and shattered under the immense pressure he had placed on it.

He had been going at it for the past hour and hadn’t quite managed to consistently cycle the life mana through all of the exercise without mistakes. Each time, something went wrong, and he had to start over.

Freya seemed to accept that he was going to keep going at it until he was satisfied. The only reason she was allowing this to go on was that she understood that there weren’t any real threats or risks of danger to him. Sure, he was destroying his body, but his soul and mind were still fine.

She also knew he was too stubborn to give up until he improved a little bit. So she stood next to the circle he was sitting in, ready to step forward if anything went wrong.

The circle that Freya created for him was a modified version of the circles that healers used in hospitals and medical centers. Not everyone had such immaculate control over their mana, and these circles helped reduce the risk of something going wrong. They also had other helpful features.

Freya was using the pain-reducing feature to help Julius, knowing that he was likely going to get injured. To her credit, she was absolutely correct.

He began the exercises again, and this time around, he wanted to try something a little different. However, it was a bad idea, and immediately, he felt the mana go out of control. He tried his best to contain it, but it was impossible, and he needed to vent the mana somewhere before the pressure exploded on its own.

He grimaced and forced it through one of his arms. The circle thankfully blocked the explosion of blood and bone, but he still made a mess of things. He sighed and rubbed his head with his already regenerating limb.

Then waved around the nub into the air lazily with a thoughtful frown on his face as he tried to come up with other ways to get a handle on these exercises.

These exercises that the book had him doing were very dangerous. He didn’t know how Tezuko even thought about using life mana in such a weird way. It was so hard to control and, to be honest, a little stupid.

Just balancing the mana took a lot of Julius’s focus.

What made it more ludicrous was that this wasn’t even the real technique. The modifications he would be doing later down the road would be much more taxing and require a higher level of control.

If he couldn’t manage this, then what hopes did he have of successfully creating a mana heart or other body modifications?

He needed to take this more seriously.

His aura reacted to his change of mindset, and he could feel the Ruinous Crown on his head start to feel motivated as well. It flared up in response, flickering with excitement. He gave it a gentle reminder to remain silent for the time being.

To his satisfaction, the crown listened and stood by as Julius did his thing. Ever since he had fought that chimera, the crown had been much more responsive and listened to him more easily. He must have earned some of its respect or something.

Once he felt he was prepared, he went for it. For the past hour, he had been taking it slow because it was new to him. However, he no longer needed caution. He needed to be bold. So with a deep pull of mana, he started the process all over again.

He noticed that Freya reacted instantly, taking half a step closer to him, but ultimately holding back.

The life mana spread throughout his body. It violently carved out pathways in his channels. His channels rejected this and did their best to fight back, slowly healing over the sections his life mana had chiseled out. This meant he had to continuously carve these markings even deeper with the next cycle of life mana.

It was a delicate balance of power and control.

He felt his life mana flare out of his control, just like how it had been doing for the past hour. However, this time, he wanted to try something.

He took control of his ruinous aura and formed a sort of barrier around the pathways he was creating. It was easier said than done, though. It wasn’t like he was creating a physical barrier around his body.

No, this was a hair-thin barrier that he created inside his mana channels. He was hoping that he could destroy any bits of life mana that tried to go out of his control. Those flare-ups were usually the start of his problems. Once they began, it was almost impossible to stop them, as it triggered a chain reaction.

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Of course, it would be naive to hope that it would work perfectly the first time around. That was why he wasn’t surprised when the ruinous aura went too far and completely vaporized all of his work with the life mana.

The mana inside his channels slowed to a crawl. However, there was a good thing about this. He didn’t lose any limbs or require any healing.

He frowned and lifted his bloody shirt. He saw that a small hole the size of a coin appeared in his chest from the leftover mana he wasn’t able to take care of.

He shrugged. Okay, not that much healing at least, he corrected himself.

While it didn’t work exactly as planned, he felt like there was some promise. And so after a few moments to allow his chest to heal, he went at it again.

This time, he was a little more aggressive with how much life mana he was using. With the ruinous aura taking care of the flare-ups, he was much more comfortable utilizing more mana than before.

A large amount of life mana gathered in his core. The immense energy pulsed into his chest with a soft thump. Drasil was confused at the sudden surge of life mana and investigated from his and Seraphyne’s tiny home in Julius’s soul space.

The turtle spirit was also curious and took a look. However, they both realized what was happening and went back to their own things. They knew Julius well enough at this point not to be surprised by this.

He didn’t know when it happened, but apparently, Seraphyne was more than okay with staying with him now. She had gotten very comfortable in his soul and didn’t feel a need to find another person to contract with.

Julius was thinking about this when he grimaced when the large amount of life mana almost became too much for him to handle. He went too deep, and instead of carving out little sections in his mana channels, he actually managed to carve out a line of flesh from his body.

It was like someone had taken a razor blade and sliced out a chunk of his flesh. He laughed and ignored the pain. He wasn’t going to stop until he had a good handle on this exercise. Something in his gut told him that he didn’t have a lot of time.

Something was going on with this tournament and the Empire at large. He needed to be as prepared as he could. He didn’t want to feel any regrets later down the road.

***

Freya POV

She wanted to stop him. She really did, but she knew in her heart that she couldn’t do that. Stopping him would only stall his process, and ultimately, she agreed that he needed to get stronger.

For as strong as he was at Tier 3, arguably the strongest Tier 3 in the Empire, he was still weak when compared to the entire Empire as a whole.

A powerful Tier 5 would not give a shit if Julius could beat a Tier 4. They would simply overwhelm him with sheer strength and burn his body into ashes, so there wasn’t anything to regenerate from.

She would like for him to advance to Tier 4 right away, but knew he wouldn’t. Not yet anyway. He wanted to finish the tournament.

She disagreed with that sentiment, but she understood. He was young, and while she may have thought the tournament was no longer necessary, he thought differently. He got what he needed from the secret realm, and while the rewards for winning the tournament would be nice, it likely wouldn’t be as good as some of the stuff he got.

That crown in particular was a nasty little thing. An extremely dangerous and powerful item. Yet, funnily enough, it suited Julius perfectly.

The additional life/water spirit was another boon that Julius likely didn’t realize the blessing of. The spirit should help balance out his more destructive aspects well.

She wouldnʼt say that he had gotten any overly powerful or outright broken rewards. The crown was powerful, but honestly, it could be considered more of a cursed item than anything else. Still, their long-term potential was absurd. If used correctly, these rewards would be pillars he could build off of.

Still, she watched as he ripped his body apart over and over again. She wanted nothing more than to force him to stop. But held back.

Pieces of flesh were flayed from his body, and small holes created by violent surges of life mana appeared all over his body. He was a mess, yet he kept on going with a wild grin on his face.

She didn’t know how he did it. Even with the circle, the pain must have been excruciating.

Such monstrous willpower. If anything, that was the thing that would allow him to reach the pinnacle of tiers. Forget all of his other powerful skills; with his willpower, he could accomplish anything. It was that impressive.

She had stood beside Cain during his advancement through the tiers, so she had seen how hard her husband had pushed himself. However, Julius was on another level.

Cain was stubborn and stupid, a dangerous combination, but he also knew when to take it easy. Julius didn’t.

However, this obsessive persistence showed results. At first, he was utterly unable to keep the exercise together. For all of his mana control, he wasn’t able to handle the technique. Part of the reason was probably that he wasn’t used to manipulating life mana in such a way.

The methods Freya had taught him were completely different. She made sure he learned a very structured approach. One that he could rely on when healing others. She wanted him to build a strong foundation and then add other techniques as he went along.

However, the methods from Tezuko were insane. There were no solid patterns or structures in these exercises. Everything relied on reacting with precision and adapting to constant changes or random fluctuations.

If she didn’t know who Tezuko was, she would have thought these exercises were worthless and merely a cruel joke to whoever believed in them.

Yet, the longer she watched Julius fail over and over again, she realized there was genius behind this madness. These exercises forced the user to juggle multiple tasks at once. With the rapid changes, it trains the user never to lose focus or control over the technique. It would eventually become a habit for someone to make slight adjustments with barely a thought.

She was already seeing Julius accomplish this. The difference between the beginning of the session and now was vast. He was still failing, but smaller and smaller mistakes were causing each failure.

She held back an exasperated chuckle.

The boy was truly a monster.