Path to Transcendence

The resulting explosion blasted him backward and tore apart the arm he had put up to protect his face. [Savage Dance] protected him from the influx of pain and he was still able to function, frantically evading the trolls who had taken advantage of his mistake. However, he was injured pretty badly. He had lost his entire right hand and half of his arm from the explosion. Furthermore, he had severe internal bleeding from the concussive force, which had ruptured several of his organs. For the next several moments he was trying all he could do to survive the troll's assault while running [Restoration] as hard as he could.

The troll's endurance showed and they didn't give him even a little breathing room, he was stuck within their flurry of attacks. They kept up the assault and he could feel himself slowly falling behind. [Restoration] not able to keep up with his accruing injuries. Finally, Julius realized he needed to take a risk. He allowed the next swing of the troll to hit his already injured shoulder and used every ounce of kinetic energy from the strike and what he had collected to launch himself as far away as he could.

He landed over a hundred paces away, and though he had tried to absorb as much kinetic energy from the attack as he could, the entire left side of his body was still crushed. Okay, no more playing around. Julius was preparing four condensed spikes to kill the rapidly approaching trolls. However, something stopped him.

If he killed them with the spikes then that would mean he practically admitted defeat. He had told himself he would kill the trolls without using his new technique and would use [Firebolt] instead.

Was it dumb that he still wanted to continue with his plan even if it meant he would die? Yes. Was it his arrogant pride that was driving him to make this decision? Absolutely.

However, was this the limit to how much he was willing to risk to get stronger? Hell no.

With a snarl, he immediately dissipated the spikes and summoned four [Firebolts], modifying them into strings. The last failure had Julius realize that he couldn't compress the entire thing after it was finished. He needed to compress the strings before he started to weave them.

Once he compressed them he began to weave four separate [Firebolts] together. However, it was like braiding four steel cables, they just wouldn't bend. Julius was rapidly blasting himself as far backward as he could so that he had time to finish this construct. His frustration reached its limit, not even [Savage Dance] was able to control the flood of emotions. With his entire will, he started to smash the four strands together. Blood was dripping from his eyes and nose. Slowly, but surely he was braiding the condensed cords of mana together.

Then they came together and created a beautiful construct of brilliant red. It was small, only the length of his hand and as wide as a finger, but it radiated power. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to admire his work, as the trolls were almost on him. He launched it at the group and it triggered on impact. The resulting explosion tore through the two trolls in the front like they were wet toilet paper and the two in the back were blasted dozens of paces away.

Julius didn't give them the chance to get up, he had already started creating another woven [Firebolt]. This one was created using only three strands and compressed to a slightly lesser degree. He was sacrificing a little bit of power for a much faster creation. In mere moments he had another ready to go and sent it at the troll staggering to its feet. It didn't even notice the attack before it was killed.

The last troll had lost its legs from the first attack and was regenerating its limbs quickly. But Julius created another projectile and dispatched it before it had even regrew its feet. He immediately dropped to the ground, exhausted. He had come really close to dying this time around. And it would have been entirely his fault if he did.

However, there were some nice rewards for his boneheaded risk.

[Savage Dance lvl 7 -> lvl 10]

[Thermal Compression lvl 14 -> lvl 15]

[Firebolt lvl 14 -> lvl 15]

[Restoration lvl 12 -> lvl 14]

[Kinetic Reinforcement lvl 11 -> lvl 13]

Julius had finally reached level 15 in both [Firebolt] and [Thermal Compression].

[Firebolt] has advanced to level 15. Would you like to evolve the skill?

Skill [Firebolt] is evolving… possible advancements: [Scorching Lance], [Thermo-Kinetic Javelin], and [Arcane Construct]

He was offered three paths the skill could take. [Scorching Lance] was the direct upgrade, while [Thermo-Kinetic Javelin] was an upgrade that included kinetic energy in it. However, [Arcane Construct] was an interesting one. The other two seemed to be limited to a projectile or a single shape. Yet, [Arcane Construct] sounded like it would allow him to have more freedom with the shape and manifestation of the construct.

It probably came at the cost of offensive power, compared to the other two, which seemed more like direct damage skills. Did Julius want a stronger offensive tool or something that could give him more diversity in its usage?

It was a hard decision. He didn't make a choice yet and wanted to see what he was offered for [Thermal Compression].

[Thermal Compression] has advanced to level 15. Would you like to evolve the skill?

Skill [Thermal Compression] is evolving… possible advancements: [Extreme-Thermal Compression], [Thermo-Kinetic Compression], [Mana Consolidation], and [Pure Compression]

Julius was offered four choices for his next skill. He would happily choose any one of them. They all sounded good. [Extreme-Thermal Compression] was a general upgrade, but he compressed fire mana the most out of all his mana affinities so it would have a massive impact on his fire constructs.

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[Thermo-Kinetic Compression] would probably allow him an easier time compressing kinetic energy, which was nice because it was much harder to compress than fire or life mana. [Mana Consolidation] sounded like it would let him compress all his mana affinities with the skill, or more correctly "consolidate" them. He didn't know what might be the exact difference though. How was consolidating unique from compressing?

[Pure Compression] was the one that interested him the most. Based on his previous experiences with skill evolutions, the last choice was the one he usually ended up choosing. In Julius's experience, he believed the list of advancement options was generated in chronological order of when he had met the requirements for that particular evolution. So if he went by that logic, [Pure Compression] was the latest option he had met the requirements for. Moreover, he believed that it had to do with how he was able to compress the woven [Firebolts] together at the end.

Julius also felt something else other than fire mana had been compressed alongside it. It felt like a part of himself was being condensed into that construct. It was a possibility that [Pure Compression] might be a skill that enabled him to compress other things, and not just be limited to mana compression.

In the end, he felt like he had good enough control over his ability to compress fire mana even without the skill so he didn't go with [Extreme-Thermal Compression] and eliminated [Thermo-Kinetic Compression] because if he wanted to generalize, he also had to consider his life mana. Therefore, it came down to [Mana Consolidation] and [Pure Compression].

They were both similar sounding skills, but eventually, Julius chose [Pure Compression] due to its potential to compress things other than mana in nature.

Congratulations, skill [Pure Compression] (Rare) acquired.

Julius also didn't wait any longer to choose the evolved skill for [Firebolt].

Congratulations, skill [Arcane Construct] (Rare) acquired.

He was not lacking when it came to offense. He could already one-shot most of his opponents when he put his mind to it. What he needed right now was an ability that allowed him some breathing room whenever he got hurt, so that [Restoration] had time to heal him. And he believed that [Arcane Construct] might finally allow him to create a defensive technique.

However, he had finally ranked up two of his skills, leaving [Restoration] which was on the precipice of advancement already, and [Kinetic Reinforcement] to rank up as well. It left him in a good mood. It was nice to see the progression after putting in the work.

As he walked back to the valley, Julius was quickly healed of every injury except for his hand. No matter how much life mana he jammed into it or what he did, it wasn't growing back. It appeared like [Restoration] had a limit as well.

So as he was making his way back, he attempted several ideas that he thought might work, but to no avail. It remained an ugly stump and had healed over creating a round nub where his fingers used to be.

Although he had been concentrating on his hand, he maintained vigilance of his surroundings. Which was how he noticed a group of trolls dragging along a large creature back to the valley. They hadn't noticed him and Julius was thinking about what he would do.

Honestly, he was tired and wanted to get back to his ravine but he also wanted to test out his new skills. The only thing holding him back was the potential noise a fight might cause. They were close enough to the large camp that someone might hear the conflict. It wasn't likely, but there was still a chance.

However, he made up his mind, justifying that he would have to deal with them in the future anyway, and started to create five spikes. The process had become quite simple after constant repetition, but now with [Arcane Construct], it felt like it was faster than creating a [Firebolt]. He also could sense that he wasn't restricted by the skill during the process. He could adjust and modify the construct on the fly. It was already providing much more freedom than [Firebolt] did.

On the other hand, it wasn't as simple as calling upon the skill and feeding it mana. To create a [Firebolt] like his old skill would require more input. However, at this point, he had become comfortable enough that those extra steps didn't take that much more time, just effort. But [Arcane Construct] streamlined the process of every detail of his creating process. Even when he used [Pure Compression] on the spikes, he could feel [Arcane Construct] working in tandem with [Pure Compression] to expedite the process.

In the blink of an eye, he managed to create five heavily condensed woven spikes of fire and kinetic mana. Something that might have taken him a few seconds before he evolved the skills. He didn't shoot them at the unaware trolls just yet. He had just gotten an idea and wanted to try something.

Julius took a spike and slowly started to change its shape. He flattened the construct out into a sheet of condensed mana and formed it into a thin disk about two feet wide. Then he focused on making the edges as thin as possible. Something like this was previously impossible, he had tried for a long time but still never was able to create a razor's edge on anything he created. It wouldn't take shape or it would be too brittle, but that wasn't the case anymore. [Arcane Construct] was a rare skill for a reason and it made a massive difference. He could feel the skill helping align the construct along the edge, thinning it out without breaking it apart and enforcing the sharpened blades. It was quite a fascinating way to create a sharp edge on an object and Julius took note of it.

Once he got a feel for it, it was quite easy to finish creating a wicked sharp edge on all sides of the red disk. Soon enough he had five crimson-red disks hovering in front of his nose. They were gently spinning and releasing a pleasant thrum of mana.

Julius tracked the movements of the trolls and started to dump a lot of concentrated kinetic energy into the disks. [Pure Compression] made compressing kinetic energy a much easier task and it felt like he was compressing fire mana instead. They started to rapidly spin in place, releasing a humming noise from the speed they were gathering that quickly turned into a high-pitched whine. The disks were radiating mana around the edges in a dangerous gleam.

Once he felt like an appropriate amount of force was collected, he slung the disks of compressed fire and kinetic mana at the group. To his astonishment, they shot toward the trolls like a railgun, it was almost impossible for him to track them. Luckily he still had control over them and could feel their trajectories with his mana sense.

They reached the trolls within an instant and missed them, continuing to fly past them. Julius hurriedly controlled them to turn around before they ended up hitting the canyon walls and getting stuck.

Julius looked at them to see their reactions to the attack. However, they were oddly still. They hadn't moved an inch since the attack but Julius didn't let that stop him from trying again.

The flying sawblades were about to attack them again when Julius saw the entire group fall to the ground in a lifeless heap. Julius stopped his attack before he released them. Then he absorbed the excess kinetic energy from the disks and let them return to hover over his shoulders. Afterward, he walked over to where the trolls had fallen and inspected them.

Julius hadn't felt any resistance, that was why he thought he had initially missed. But it seemed like he was mistaken. Each troll had a perfect cut across its upper half, severing each of them into two distinct pieces. The disks had been so sharp and launched with such speed, that they had sliced right through their tough skin and hard bones like they were butter.

It was a silent execution. For someone who had been using explosions as his offensive power all this time, killing something so cleanly was new to him. He just stood over their bodies for a moment taking in what he had just done.