Path to Transcendence

Chapter 716: Mmmrggh!

“Don’t look so upset,” Thorik said with another chuckle.

“You’re telling me that after all of that, I get nothing? What was the point of that little mind trick you played on me?”

“I wanted to see what you would do,” Thorik said with an uncaring shrug.

Julius rolled his eyes and stood up, placing his stuff back inside his dimensional space. “Fine, well, if you had a good laugh, will you be so kind as to show me the exit? It would seem that I have no point in staying here any longer.”

Thorik held his palms up. “Hold up there, kid. I didn’t say I wouldn’t give you anything. Though I have to admit, I’m a little surprised at how brazen you are. It would seem you already have a good idea of who I am, yet that doesn’t seem to unsettle you. Most people would be too terrified to talk to me this way.”

Julius shrugged. “I have been around too many Tier 6s to care about respecting the ghost of one. Especially when that said ghost has been teasing and messing with me since I entered. Not to mention you’ve already insulted me for hours about my shitty craftsmanship while you got drunk.”

“It was shitty,” Thorik grumbled as if the memory of his work was painful to remember.

“That last one wasn’t so bad,” Julius muttered under his breath.

Thorik didn’t grace him with a response for that one, which also meant he somewhat agreed.

“So what kind of Tier 6s have you encountered?” Thorik asked impassively. However, Julius sensed there was a slight interest in the man’s tone. He tried to hide it, but Julius could tell from how he gripped his mug tighter.

Julius stared flatly at him. “The living ones.”

“You’re a rude little shit. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“If you cared about that, you would have killed me when I was inside your shop.”

“True, but I was hiding who I really was. Now I’m not. Do you think I won’t kill you?”

Julius scoffed. “No, I doubt it. I usually have a pretty good feeling when people want to kill me. I don’t get that feeling from you. I get the feeling that you want something from me.”

Thorik took a swig of ale and stared at him. “What makes you say that?”

“Because there was no need to approach me even after I called you out. You could have left me alone. You said it yourself, I’m not a suitable candidate for your inheritance. So why else would you still be talking to me?”

“And if I did need something from you?”

Julius was about to say something about rejecting whatever the request was, but instead, he reminded himself to calm down. He was being a little more defiant and rude than he should have been. Though to be fair, he really didn’t like it when people messed with his head. Still, he was a changed person. His new Concept of Balance showed as much. So he took a deep, calming breath and looked at the dwarf drinking out of that weird little mug.

“Are you even dead?” That was something he needed to know first before he listened or agreed to anything. Something didn’t seem right.

“Why do you ask it like that?” Thorik asked, suddenly looking at Julius a little more intently.

“Because you seem awfully casual and lively for a mere ghost who is managing this trial. I get the feeling that you are a little more than a simple illusion or remnant. So, I’m curious, what are you really?”

Thorik seemed to contemplate something and eventually shrugged. “I’m technically not dead. But I am not exactly alive either.”

Julius didn’t so much as bat an eye. “Does that mean I’m talking with the real you?”

“That depends on how you define ‘real’. But for most purposes, yes, you can consider this the real me. Though it’s a fragmented version of who I used to be,” Thorik answered.

“So why did you build this inheritance trial?”

Thorik looked at him like the question itself was a dumb one. “I’m trying to recover, obviously.”

“And how do you accomplish that?”

“By consuming the souls of every person who dies inside here.”

Julius stared at the man and was already preparing several of his skills to escape.

“I’m kidding.”

He relaxed and let his mana fall back inside him. Thank goodness.

“Sort of. Trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

Julius didn’t even waste any time, and before the dwarf could say another word, he teleported away as quickly as he could activate the skill. He appeared high in the sky and started to fly to the edge of the city. He was moving fast, too. The reason for that was that he didn’t sense a bit of deceit in the man’s voice.

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“Why are you running?” Thorik’s voice suddenly appeared next to him. The dwarf was flying right beside him, staring at Julius with a disappointed look on his face.

Julius teleported again, this time wiping out every trace of his presence with his aura. When he reappeared on the ground in an alleyway, he turned around and was once again face-to-face with Thorik, who was staring at him blankly.

“Really? You think you can run away from me inside my own special realm?”

Julius grimaced and realized that escape would be next to impossible. “It was worth a try.”

Thorik had the audacity to look surprised. “Seriously?”

Julius stared at the man for a few long moments before finally answering. “You said you consumed souls.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to consume yours.”

“So you don’t deny eating other souls?”

“No, of course not. I need the soul energy to heal my injury, and this is one of the better options I could think of.”

“You have no issues with consuming souls then?”

“Look, they all came inside here to loot my realm. I didn’t ask them to come, nor did I lure them inside. I only take from the ones who overestimate their abilities and die. I also make sure not to consume too much of their souls so they can return to the cycle of rebirth. Not to mention, I allow anyone to leave whenever they wish. I think that’s pretty fair.”

Julius listened while the man explained it to him, and honestly, Thorik made a decent point. These people were there to take whatever inheritance was left behind, and they knew well beforehand that it was dangerous. They accepted that they could die inside here. And while the secret soul-sucking part was a bit alarming and sneaky, if Thorik wasn’t destroying them completely, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

“How close are you?”

Thorik grumbled and itched his beard, frustrated. “At this rate, I’m going to need another fifty years. The ‘not draining every last inch of soul energy until it collapses’ has really hurt my estimations. I thought about changing it, but I couldn’t even if I wanted to. So I’m stuck like this.”

“And you need my help with this?”

Thorik “Yeah.”

“What about your inheritor? What is the point of all of that then?”

“An inheritor would speed up the process immensely. But as I’ve learned, finding a soul that is compatible with my own is much harder to find than anticipated, especially in a place like Corvus,” Thorik complained.

“Why do you need a compatible soul?” Julius questioned.

“Because they should be able to connect with my soul and help me recover naturally.”

“Who would want a grumpy dwarf attached to their soul?”

Julius felt his head snap forward. Thorik had somehow moved behind him and swatted him in the skull. “I was a Tier 6 at my peak, you little shit. Almost everyone except for idiots like you would want that.”

Julius rubbed his head. “Well, I don’t see the benefit.”

“When I attach to one’s soul, I can help share my power and insight with them. All it will cost them is some soul energy and some time. Most people would kill for that.”

“I still don’t see the benefit of that.”

“That’s because a kid with rocks for brains like yourself doesn’t need it. But some people would love to accelerate their growth for such a small price.”

“And you wouldn’t take over their body?”

“Fuck no! I like my original body very much,” Thorik said with a gesture. “Plus, it would probably be a human, so definitely a no.”

“Racist.”

Julius got hit again and saw stars this time.

“Shut up. Your mouth is going to get you killed,” Thorik grumbled with annoyance.

“Sorry,” Julius mumbled unapologetically and rubbed his head, healing the fracture running along his skull. “How am I supposed to help you?”

Thorik looked at him with a deep intensity. A look that felt like he could peer directly into the window of Julius’s soul. “You have a phoenix-aspected healing skill, right?”

Julius would have denied it, but the man sounded very convinced. Instead, he sighed. “You can tell?”

Thorik rolled his eyes. “Can I see that the sky is blue? Of course, I can tell you have a phoenix skill.”

Julius narrowed his eyes. “And that is important, why?”

“Because you can recover your soul by using it. Itʼs one of the few healing skills where soul recovery is quite fast.”

He didn’t even need Thorik to tell him why he would need to use his skill in the first place. He already knew what the man was asking of him and shook his head firmly. “Nope, not doing it.”

Thorik let out an annoyed huff. “You’ll be fine.”

“Says you.”

“I promise,” the man said in the most unconvincing manner.

“I don’t trust you,” Julius scoffed and walked out of the alley. He did notice that there wasn’t any fighting going on anymore. He wondered if the time limit had already elapsed or if Thorik was doing something.

Thorik grabbed him by the shoulder and forcibly sat him down on a nearby bench. “I’ll reward you handsomely.”

“Yeah, but it won’t matter if I’m not alive to enjoy them,” Julius shot back, prying Thorik’s fingers from him.

“You’ll survive. I’ve already run the calculations, and by my estimate, you will experience only a little pain and a few days of weakness. I have several powerful soul treasures in case I’ve found my successor.”

Julius paused upon hearing that. Truth be told, he was kind of in need of a powerful soul treasure. Something that would help him strengthen it at least. He’d been holding back on evolving his body enhancement skill because he didn’t feel like his soul could handle another legendary skill. He’d been hoping that the other two and improvement to his other epic skills would have helped him experience his third soul evolution, but so far, nothing.

“But didn’t you just admit that your previous calculations were wrong?”

“Pah! I had to calculate thousands of unknown souls. Whereas I extensively tested yours while I had you fight those monsters earlier. There’s a big difference.”

Julius thought about it for a few moments before shaking his head. “Sorry, but I was told not to accept candy from strangers, and I was definitely told that accepting to have my soul siphoned by some half-dead, drunken dwarf was a bad idea too.”

Thorik stared at him for a few moments before shrugging. “Eh, fuck it.”

Julius scrunched his nose up in confusion. What did he mean by that?

Fortunately for him, he got the answer to his question very quickly. Something grabbed hold of him. It was like the previous domain-like oppression he felt when he fought those Obsidian Horrors, but multiplied severalfold.

He tried to escape, but his teleportation was still disrupted the moment he activated it. Thorik was holding him by the shoulder, albeit surprisingly gently considering what Julius had personally seen from the dwarf.

“Bottoms up,” Thorik said to him, and Julius’s eyes widened when the same mug that Thorik had been drinking out of was pressed against his lips.

“Mmmrggh!”

Julius tried to shake his way out of it, but goddamn, the dwarf was strong as hell for someone who was apparently injured so badly he needed to feed off souls to survive. Thorik sighed and leaned down to pry open his lips, and he was helpless to do anything but let the cold, refreshing beverage slide down his throat.