Path to Transcendence

Chapter 727: Whatʼs Going on Here?

There was good news and bad news. The bad news was that the requirements for his skill evolution were a bit more difficult than anticipated. The shapes had to be quite unique, and he couldn’t just reuse the same mana from a previous construct like he thought he might be able to. He either needed to add some mana or take some away for it to count. However, controlling a hundred constructs simultaneously was the real issue.

Each construct needed to have a certain amount of mana. So much so that he didn’t know if he even had enough mana to do it. That was saying something. He had quite a large mana pool for his tier. Then again, he suspected that someone with this skill evolution test would normally be in Tier 5 already. Additionally, with the large amount of mana, it made handling so many constructs a much larger issue.

The more mana each construct had, the more challenging it was to keep control of them. Especially if there were a hundred of them.

That was the bad news. The good news was that his recent improvements to his soul helped a lot. His control and ability to handle mana had increased substantially. Without that, it was possible that such a task would be close to impossible. He didn’t know whether to thank Thorik or to curse him and his ancestors. He was still on the fence about that.

Oh, and he had more good news. That spear he used was quite spectacular. A little too spectacular if he was being honest. It was better than almost every weapon he’d seen so far, and now that he figured out this new way of creating constructs, he didn’t feel as much of a need to get a new weapon.

Furthermore, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he was more of a jack of all trades sort of fighter. He used such a wide variety of weapons that getting one would only impede his fighting style. He could have gotten a really good soul-bound sword, but there were times when he wanted to use a hammer or an axe. Sometimes he also just wanted to beat some people with a good old stick.

Sadly, the spear wasn’t exactly a good thing to use for fishing. It was probably one of the worst tools and completely overkill. He was forced to create a much more normal construct and used that to spear several fish in the creek.

The fish were quite plump and looked delicious. He had already filleted them and slapped them on the grill he had set up. When he removed the guts, he had stuffed them with herbs and seasonings.

Drasil and Seraphyne were watching with drooling mouths. Drasil didn’t really eat much human food other than sweets, but he seemed interested in having a taste. Seraphyne enjoyed human food, so he made her some extra. When it was finally ready, Julius threw some quickly made dough onto a hot pan, making a poor man’s version of a flatbread. Then they sat down and dove into their meal.

He didn’t know if the fish was that delicious, or if heʼd just been deprived of fresh food for so long, but it was one of the best meals he had ever had. He was sad when the fish was gone and licked his plate clean.

After they ate, Drasil and Seraphyne hopped back into the creek to play some more. He decided that they would camp out in the woods tonight. It wasn’t like they had any pressing matters to attend to.

After several hours of relaxing on the creek bank, sitting by a warm fire, and cuddling with his familiars, he started to get ready for bed. He had already set up a nice camp and was just enjoying the stars peacefully. While he did that, he made a list of constructs he planned to create tomorrow or the next day. With so many constructs and a firm timeline, he wanted to have a plan ready to go. He had approximately five or so constructs to make every hour, and when you took into consideration downtime and sleep, he had less than that.

However, just as he was heading into his tent, he perked up when he sensed several aura signatures approaching in the distance. The auras were very subtle, and it was only due to his newly improved soul senses that he was able to detect them so easily from far away, but he immediately became a little more wary.

He had too many negative experiences with strangers while in Corvus and wasn’t about to be caught off guard this time around. He frowned when he sensed them right in his direction and cursed silently. With a frustrated grumble, he put away his tent in his dimensional space as a precaution.

Then took Drasil and Seraphyne back into his soul space. They realized that something was wrong and let him do so without any issue.

He then erased his aura and mana before heading out toward the group of people. He was surprised at how effective his aura had gotten at erasing his presence. It was yet another benefit of his soulʼs evolution.

When he reached the group of people, he was quite alarmed at what he saw.

It was quite a decently large group. There were at least a dozen people walking through the woods, but what really caught his eye was the line of people shackled together. It wasn’t just humans either. He saw at least one beastkin amongst them and at least one of elvish heritage.

The beastkin’s silver fur glistened in the moonlight so brightly that not even the raggedy cloak draped over her shoulders could hide it. Nor could it hide the blonde hair and pointed ears on the elf. His mind immediately went to the worst assumption, but he didn’t act right away. Rather, he got closer and investigated what was going on. Who knew? Maybe these people were bad criminals.

Though he was finding it harder to believe the more he looked at the group. There was a clear pattern amongst these prisoners. For one, they were all female except for a lone human boy who looked more female than male.

He also didn’t like the feeling he got when he looked at the men escorting them. They were mostly men except for two women, and they didn’t seem like what he’d expect from law enforcement.

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Their auras were already so subtle that it was hard to find them, but their mana signature was almost entirely empty. There was just enough mana that there wasn’t a void in the area, but he suspected that one of them had a skill that hid their mana or an item that did the same thing.

He finally got close enough to overhear them.

“Did we really have to take this route? Why couldn’t we just hire a wagon to take them back to Goldmere? We can always bribe the city guards to let us through,” one of the men said with a heavy sigh.

“Because there will be people looking for them, and we don’t want to take the risk of meeting them on the road. Just deal with it for now, we don’t have long left. There is a nice little creek up ahead where we can stay the night. Tomorrow we will meet with my contact, and they can help smuggle us into Goldmere without detection,” another man, presumably the leader, replied evenly. He was quite tall and thin, but had a very sharp look to him. He also had a long black ponytail held up by what looked like a nice-looking hairpin.

Julius noticed that while the man was only a Tier 4, he had a very cautious expression on his face. He was constantly looking around, surveying the area. Julius immediately labeled him as the largest threat.

But at the end of the day, that was all he was— a Tier 4.

Julius watched while they took these prisoners down the same creek he had just been on before, watching from the shadows. He had already covered his face with a cloak and a black cloth. His face could be changed, but he was starting to get the sense that the Lightweave Necklace was having some issues. Typically, it was attached to his soul and aura, but ever since he evolved his soul and recovered, it could barely contain his soul.

He hated to admit it, but his soul had become a bit fat. A chunky little thing, and it was busting out the seams.

That was slightly problematic, and in case something went wrong, he wanted to hide his face.

While they were setting up camp, he saw that several of the men were roughly shoving these prisoners to the ground, chaining them down with some kind of special spike. He was starting to come to the conclusion that these people weren’t good people, and when he saw one of the men kick the beastkin girl when she didn’t listen to him, his mind was already made up.

He didn’t sense anyone else around, and he was quite confident he could take these people down before they could call for help or run away.

He saw the elf bend down to help the fallen beastkin girl, but this only angered the man, and he cracked the back of his fist across her temple. She fell to the ground in pain, and several of the other men nearby laughed as if they found it hilarious. But he also caught the very cross look from their leader, staring daggers at the man who had hit the girl.

However, that was when Julius decided that he had seen enough.

He teleported in with a [Void Step]. The tragic excuse of an anti-teleportation enchantment they placed around the camp didn’t so much as touch him. He appeared next to Mr. Ponytail, and his spear went straight through his spine and severed the man’s nervous system. The man fell limply to the ground without so much as a shout.

His attack didn’t go completely unnoticed, though, and one of the women and two of the men panicked as they grabbed their weapons to attack him. But he grabbed hold of them with his aura and kinetic energy. He slammed their jaws shut so hard that he heard their teeth crack.

Now they weren’t able to move or scream for help. Then, before the others could react, he created three spikes, weaving them together tightly and compressing just enough mana to break through their defenses. They didn’t even get to turn around before the spikes pierced their armor and came out of their front. Then he turned to the guy who had hit the girls and vanished, reappearing with a [Void Step], slamming the back of his hand into his head, knocking him out cold.

Then he grabbed hold of the other injured men and squeezed with his aura without much care. Their auras panicked under his tight grip, and with a final twist, he essentially choked their auras so much that they succumbed to sleep.

There was one woman who seemed to handle his aura better than most. There was a protective shell of her own aura shielding her from the ruinous aura. She was still held in place by his kinetic energy, and since she was the last one left, he watched as she struggled. The way she used her aura was very interesting. It was like she had placed small emblems or runes made up of aura on the surface of her flesh.

It was also what enabled her to struggle against his kinetic energy better than her comrades. He couldn’t help but wonder if he could replicate something like this. And if he was able to, would it be better than what he did, which was infusing aura directly into his flesh?

He allowed her to struggle against his kinetic energy and aura. The more she fought, the more he learned about her abilities. Each rune seemed to have a specific purpose. But it also seemed like it didn’t require much aura or mental energy to keep running.

Quite fascinating.

He stored away that idea for the time being and finally cranked up his aura. Despite her resilience, she wasn’t able to hold on any longer and her runes flickered out of existence before she went limp.

Only once he was sure that everyone was incapacitated, did he go over to the prisoners. They seemed scared and were silent, but also seemed to understand that he’d just taken care of their captors. The first thing he did was take out several bottles of healing potions from his storage space. Their injuries weren’t so bad that they needed to be healed by him, and he didn’t want to show his healing skill unnecessarily.

They were skeptical of the potions, and it was only when the elvish girl took it from him first that the others followed.

He let them slowly heal, and after they drank the potions, they looked remarkably better. They were still dirty, though, so he used some aura to remove the dirt and grime from their bodies. This surprised them, but when they noticed he hadn’t hurt, he relaxed.

While they stood there in silence, he walked over to the leader, whom he took out first, and bent down to pry the ring from the man’s finger. It was quite a nice ring; several strong enchantments were wrapped around it. But it wasn’t like his own.

He concentrated and let his aura senses flood into the crevices of the ring, feeling around for its enchantments. It took around a minute, but he finally felt the gaps within the enchantments and started to peel them apart with his aura. His newly improved aura helped a lot with this. It destroyed the aura lock without issue, and he was able to access the ring without issue.

He took out what appeared to be a set of keys to the shackles they were wearing and a large set of dark robes, floating them over to the girls. The shackles were meant to interfere with mana and other skills, so when they removed them, it was like a weight had been lifted off them.

He even looked away from them while they changed into clean robes. Only once they were done and free of the chains, did he look back at them.

“So what is going on here?” he finally asked.