Path to Transcendence

Chapter 712: Three Out of Ten

“You suck at this,” Thorik commented with a disgusted grunt.

“Yeah, why do you think I wanted a teacher?”

“I thought you had at least some experience. I bet I could find a random orphan whoʼs missing half of their fingers in a dirty alleyway who could have made something better than this piece of junk,” the dwarf said critically while lifting up the dagger Julius had made.

“I haven’t really made blades before.”

“This isn’t a blade. This is… this is a miserable slab of wasted metal.”

Julius shrugged. Thorik wasn’t exactly wrong; it was a disgraceful weapon. It would be more effective as a blunt throwing object than if he tried to cut anything with it. That being said, he learned quite a bit.

While Thorik was a spiteful and rude dwarf, he was also true to his word and helped Julius learn some things. One thing he pointed out to Julius was his overreliance on his fire magic. It meant that he depended on his high-heat flames to mold the metal rather than using his own hands. He was also criticized for using too much aura to manipulate the metal.

Apparently, using too much of his own aura “corrupted” the metal and made it harder to imbue other properties. It was good to minimize mistakes and to touch up small details, but apparently, it was bad as the primary means of crafting a blade. He also mentioned that Julius’s ruinous aura eroded many of the metalʼs good qualities, making it more brittle and undermining its overall integrity.

However, Julius was surprised when he was given a hammer from the dwarf. It was a pretty large hammer, too; the mallet was almost the size of his head. It wasn’t something he expected for a dwarf of Thorik’s size to use.

Time passed quickly. Before he knew it, he got a notification stating that the trial would officially begin in less than thirty minutes. He would have loved to keep on learning with Thorik, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t be possible.

Regardless, he made every second count. He internalized all of Thorik’s insults and understood what the dwarf was trying to tell him about his work to the very last second. He managed to create another dagger before the time finally ran out.

This one was something he was pretty proud of, and Thorik picked it up from the table, inspecting it.

“It’s still an ugly piece of shit,” the dwarf muttered, but surprisingly, Julius didn’t hear any insults toward the quality of the blade itself. Which also meant the man didn’t think it was too bad.

“How is it?”

Thorik didn’t answer and instead grunted.

“What would you rate it out of ten?” he pressed with hopeful eyes.

“Three.”

Three might have sounded low, but when Julius asked the same question about his last knife, the dwarf hadn’t even replied and instead threw the dagger across the room and into a crucible to be recycled.

He hadn’t even been able to try to enchant a blade yet, which was something he felt a little more comfortable doing. His style relied on his strong willpower and the many concepts he drew on for inspiration.

He didn’t think he would get the chance either.

The admission period has concluded. The Fifth Floor Trial will commence now…

Julius read the message and then felt a sudden surge of mana from all sides of the city. It was so strong that he could feel it through the enchantments of Thorik’s shop.

Objective: Defeat as many Obsidian Horrors as possible within the hour. You will be competing against other participants in the trial. The top scorers will proceed to the next floor.

Obsidian Horrors? Julius didn’t like the sound of that, and he ran out of the shop, throwing out his [Absolute Spatial Perception] in a wide blanket.

He heard them before he sensed them. High-pitched shrieks filled the streets, and the sounds of citizensʼ screams followed right behind. He blasted himself down the streets at high speed. A shell made of [Field of the Shattered Will] surrounded him, and he was forced to evade the horde of dwarves, all running from something. But there were so many of them that he just decided to fly up and over the crowd, heading over to where he sensed the most chaos.

When he arrived, he finally saw what these Obsidian Horrors looked like. And the name was a terrifyingly accurate description.

He’d been expecting something like the golems from before, but not this. The golems had been scary in a strong and robust sort of way. But these creatures looked like they had just crawled out of an eldritch dimension. They had obsidian-black skin, but unlike the golemsʼ, their skin flowed like oil. But there was still obviously hard if the attacks glancing off them were any indicator.

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Additionally, their auras were truly frightening. He’d never encountered auras with so much pure fear and terror radiating from them.

They were around the same size as the golems but struck fast like vipers. He saw several dwarves running out to confront these creatures, but they were no match for them. When they got close enough, they were frozen in place by the powerful auras alone.

Even the ones who were able to resist had their armor shattered by these creatures. Axes snapped in half when they crashed into the liquid-like skin, and even blasts of mana were rendered useless. It was just like the golems from the previous trials.

He saw one of the dwarves get snatched up by one of these Obsidian Horrors. Instead of smashing the dwarf into the ground like Julius expected to happen, he saw gruesome jaws form on the horrorʼs face, and it crunched down on the dwarf, snapping him and his armor in half.

The screams of the city were deafening, and he was almost overwhelmed by the sheer terror he felt coming from these creatures, compounded by the people’s own fear. He was forced to close off his aura senses to avoid being bombarded and blinded by these auras.

He spotted another Obsidian Horror appear to his left and saw that it had its eyes on a group of hiding dwarves in a back alley. They were backed up against the wall, screaming out in panic. The creature almost seemed to savor their cries and fear.

Julius’s body moved before his mind even made the decision. He appeared in front of the creature, rocketing a fist into his face, and detonating his accumulated kinetic energy. It was just like hitting those stronger golem variants. He did some damage, but not enough to put it off.

The creature turned around to him and let out a shriek right in his face. It had some kind of sound-based skill, and he felt his brain rattling inside his head. There was also an insidious effect on his mind, but he crushed it with sheer willpower.

Rather, he grabbed ahold of the Obsidian Horror by the head, dragged it down to his level, and headbutted the shit out of it, straight into its crown. The disturbed soul item bound item was delighted to be in a fight and unleashed a powerful wave of flames right into the creatureʼs face.

Surprisingly, this worked pretty well. He hadn’t tried to use any of his raw flames against the golems before, just on the assumption that they wouldn’t work as well. But it would seem he was wrong, and he could feel his ruinous flames burning the insides of the creature. It let out an even louder shriek right in his face, and he could feel his ears bleeding.

He glanced to the side and saw that the dwarves close by werenʼt dealing with it nearly as well as he was. They were on the ground, grabbing their heads in agony. He knew these dwarves were “technically” real, but it didn’t feel right to just act like they didn’t exist or treat them like disposable objects.

Were they? Maybe. But they certainly seemed in pain now, and he didn’t like that.

He grabbed the creature and blasted the two of them down the street, where he didn’t sense any dwarves. He sent over a quick burst of life mana before he left, which helped these people recover from their injuries.

The two of them slammed into a building, and he drove an elbow straight into its throat. Its monstrous limbs tried to rip his arms away. It was pretty darn strong, too, and he struggled to overwhelm it.

But he didn’t need his arms either. He let out a snarl and headbutted it again while continuously sending more flames straight down its open mouth.

He then proceeded to slam his knees packed with kinetic energy straight into the creature’s body. Physical attacks weren’t as effective, but they still worked, and with how much power he was sending with each strike, the damage was accumulating quickly.

There was nothing it could do but scream in his face while he beat it down. While he was ripping apart this creature, he was simultaneously creating a smaller version of his improved construct over his shoulder.

When the creature was almost limp and half dead, he shoved his hand down its throat and detonated an orb he packed full of his ruinous flames. The explosion mangled his hand, but he ignored the injury and, without turning around, sent the prepared spear of highly compressed mana at the Obsidian Horror, trying to sneak behind him.

The construct blasted the creature back, a hole in the middle of its sternum. It wasn’t as strong as the missile he created previously, but it also didn’t take as much time or focus, not even close. Nor did it use as much mana, which was always a plus.

With the creature staggering back, he dashed toward it, kinetic energy gathering with each step. When he reached it, he ducked under the wild swing and slammed his leg right into the hole he created with the last attack. With its abnormally strong armor already compromised, his strike did a lot more damage than his other attempts.

He was forced to dodge back when its sharpened limb almost pierced his chest, but he accomplished what he wanted to.

Fine cracks appeared all over its body, and Julius could feel some kind of skill trying to fix them. But it was too slow, and he wasn’t about to give it time to recover. He went back in, shoulders hunched and with another spear of mana weaving into existence over his shoulder.

It shrieked, and the same sound and mentally based attack tried to hurt him, but he ignored it just like before. His mind was like a steel fortress. It would have an easier time peeling his skin from his bones than breaking in there, not when he was prepared for it. Even its aura of terror wasn’t able to gain an inch of ground. His ruinous aura and soul slapped the attempt to the side as if it were an unruly child.

He ducked under several of its attacks and kicked its legs out from underneath it. Deciding to spend some mana, he activated [Void Strike], a skill he seldom used due to its cost.

Furthermore, he honestly didn’t typically need it. Most of his other skills were enough to deal with most threats. But with how durable these things were, it would probably save him time and mana if he chose to use it now rather than later.

While its surface was very durable, his void skill penetrated beneath it. Turns out that [Void Strike] was the perfect skill to use against these creatures, and he felt something within its chest explode. The creature let out a deafening screech, but he slammed his fist into its face once again, silencing it for good.

He looked over and noticed that there weren’t any other Obsidian Horrors within the nearby vicinity. Still, he could hear more fighting off in the distance, and after sending a healing pulse to a young woman who was huddled in a corner holding her head in pain, he dashed toward the noise.