Path to Transcendence

Chapter 546: Scary Woman

Julius took two steps back. The first step was from the pain he felt pulsating in his mind. The second step was from sheer shock at how powerful Lily’s mind magic was. That last psychic strike had a lot of weight behind it, and it actually shattered his focus for a second.

He shook his head, and because of this second of delay, his face was slammed with a Lily-sized fist. He smiled when she backed off and held her fist in pain. He hadn’t been able to avoid her fist, but at the last second, he enforced his head with as much mana and aura as he could.

It probably felt like punching a steel wall.

He regathered himself and restructured some of his skills. The attack on his mind hadn’t just hurt, but it had thrown the half dozen tasks he had been running in his head into chaos. He quickly put them back together, but it was still an impressive feat from Lily.

He hadn’t met anyone who was able to do that to him, especially from anyone who was Tier 3.

He hadn’t experienced anything like it before. Not like he had run across many mind mages or people with psychic abilities in general.

He watched in awe as powerful ripples of psychic energy rippled from her body, as mana would. The pressure was intense in a way that mana couldn’t replicate. This was more ethereal. He could see why people were so scared of her.

And right now, she was directing all of this power at little old Julius. He made sure to add several more layers of protection around his delicate head, using everything he had learned about mental defenses. However, he doubted that they would do much to stop her. She was the person who had shown him these protections in the first place.

But he felt the need to. While this fight had started out as a sparring session, it had quickly devolved into something else. She was using her psychic abilities as her primary tool to fight him. Something that he was becoming more and more nervous about the more he saw from her.

She really wanted to beat him, and to be honest, he was slightly to blame. He wanted to tease her a little bit, just to get her to try hard against him. So he couldn’t be complaining now that she was going all out on him.

Still, as tired as she was from their sparring, her mind attacks were efficient and brutal.

He was right about his protections not doing diddly squat. She tore through them like a bull ripping apart a wet newspaper. She knew every weakness and used her overwhelming might to overpower him.

His willpower helped matters greatly, but there was only so much willpower could do when someone was bashing his mind with a jackhammer.

He was forced to lean back from the wild swing from her and used his leg to block her leg. However, he flinched once more, the sudden surge of psychic energy dazed him, and he felt her whack him in the face with an elbow.

She shook her arm again. His body was pretty tough while being protected by aura-woven mana, and she was learning that the hard way.

“Take that off,” she demanded, glaring at the blue barrier around his body.

“You stop with the mind attacks first,” he argued, stepping back.

“I need everything I can use to keep up. If anything, you should be a gentleman and let me hit you when I get through. All I am doing is hurting myself more than anything else,” Lily said while rubbing her elbow. She gasped out and looked down, crestfallen as if someone had just kicked her dog.

He sighed. “Fine,” he said with a grumble and let his skin-tight barrier disappear into the air. “I will let you hit me.”

Lily’s face bloomed with a grin. “Yay!”

Julius rubbed his temples, which were still sore from her attacks. “You want to continue?”

She took large, deep breaths and nodded. “Yeah.”

Julius looked over at Marcus and noticed the man looked extremely happy for some reason. As if Marcus enjoyed seeing Lily being challenged or something. Julius didn’t have much time to mull it over, though, because he was quickly bombarded with another relentless assault of psychic strikes mixed with close combat attacks from an uncharacteristically aggressive Lily.

***

The day of the third round came faster than he would have liked. Though, to be fair, he would have liked a more extended break. His work on his new life mana exercises has been taking up a lot of his time, and he has found it very satisfying as he improves.

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He wasn’t quite at the point where he could move on to the second chapter, but he was proud that he wasn’t exploding from the influx of life mana. That was quite an achievement, and he kept the technique running for most of the day while going about his regular routine.

He ended up deciding to get [Kinetic Shell] after all. He had slept on it and talked with Freya at length about it. She surprisingly wasnʼt against him getting it, nor was she against him possibly removing the skill if he didn’t like it or didn’t gain another skill to combine with it.

Apparently, Cain was right about his soul being more resilient with his second soul evolution already completed. The only issue or worry she had was the possible influence it might have on his advancement. If he were to advance after removing a skill, it might cause problems.

That was why she had promised him that if he chose to remove the skill, he wouldn’t be allowed to advance until she was confident that nothing would happen or that it would cause any issues for him.

He readily agreed to that. He wanted to get to Tier 4, probably even more after he learned that Reinera had already been there for a couple of months at least. But he also knew that a couple of months of waiting was a small price to pay to ensure he had a trouble-free advancement.

Not that he was expecting his advancement to be without issues. But the fewer risks, the better. Especially with how worried they were about his healing skill, aura, and other powerful aspects of his path.

Congratulations, you have learned [Kinetic Shell].

Julius felt the familiar wave of energy rush through him as he acquired the skill. The information was dumped into his brain, and he understood at an intrinsic level how to use the skill.

The main thing he noticed right away was how easy it was to connect with this “shell,” the skill talked about. Cain wasn’t kidding when he said that the shell was more noticeable than Julius would think.

To Julius’s senses, it was indeed a shell. He could feel it through his kinetic energy and his other senses as well, though only to a minor degree.

He could infuse this shell with more kinetic energy, making it stronger. Additionally, he felt like he could control this kinetic energy to a greater degree than normal. As long as it was within the shell, the kinetic energy responded much more fluidly and rapidly than usual.

He already liked the skill just for that reason.

However, unlike Cain’s experience with the skill. There were some differences, at least from what Julius could tell off the bat. For example, Cain told Julius that his shell had been very firm and inflexible. It made it a powerful defensive tool, but it also lacked some finesse.

Yet, Julius could already manipulate this shell, contrasting with Cain’s own experience. This wasn’t too unexpected. Julius knew that just because the skill names were the same, it didn’t mean the skills would behave in the same fashion.

Still, it was interesting to see such a direct comparison.

Julius didn’t know if this was necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, the skill would probably be weaker defensively than Cain’s had been. But on the other hand, the skill would likely be more flexible and versatile. Which, in Julius’s case, might be even better for him.

Only time would tell, though.

Cain wanted to test it out, as did Julius. But they had to get going. The third stage would start soon, and he was obligated to participate in a dumb little ceremony. All of the people from the third stage were forced to.

“Come on, you two and beat each other into a pulp up later,” Freya said when she heard them complaining.

“Beat up? What are you talking about? He never beats me up,” Cain said with a scoff, but Julius noticed the man didn’t say anything about beating Julius up into a pulp.

Freya didn’t say a word, simply giving her husband a flat stare.

“Of course, honey,” Cain said sweetly and looked at Julius. “What are you waiting for? Get a move on it.”

Julius gave Cain a look of disbelief at the shameless shift of behavior, but also didn’t blame the man too much. Freya was a scary woman.

***

He found himself walking through the districts of the capital with Lily by his side. Cain and Freya weren’t with him anymore. While they were leaving, Duke Zenith had asked them to talk about something, and they told Julius they would catch up later.

His friends had already gone on over. However, he wasn’t alone. Lily had invited herself along when she heard Cain and Freya weren’t coming with him. He would have thought she had gone with the others, but apparently she had been working late on her skills after her spar with Julius, and had slept in late.

Lily and he pulled up his cloak over their faces and slowly made their way through the city. It was insane how busy it had gotten in the capital. It was totally different from the other stages. The number of people who were flooding into the city for the third stage of the tournament created total pandemonium.

They knew where they were going, so he wasn’t concerned about getting lost. But it was a pain to wait and move so slowly. He could tell that other people were feeling similarly. They finally were able to get on a small tram that was taking people across the city to the arena.

They found some seats and sat down. Lily grabbed her head with a wince. With her psychic abilities, she was likely experiencing wave after wave of emotions from the crowd. He scooted closer to her and passed her some water while infusing her with some life mana.

She smiled and gave him a grateful nod.

He smiled back and continued to give her life mana as she tried to block out all of the people.

Eventually, she managed to regain some semblance of control and visibly relaxed. Once she did, she excused herself and went toward the back, where the bathroom was. She wanted to wash her face.

He was waiting for her to return when a group of young teens suddenly came over to him. Julius looked up at the ring leader with a frown. The guy was leaning down and getting much too close for comfort.

“Hey, why don’t you get lost, eh?”

Julius flinched back from the abrupt comment and leaned back to look at the handsome guy.

“Huh?” He asked, feeling more confused than anything.