Path to Transcendence

Once he determined it was completely dead, he dropped to the ground. He immediately started the process of healing his arm, red and orange flames enveloping it. Funnily enough, for how much effort that fight took, he was still almost fully loaded on mana. The only one that was kind of depleted was his life mana. But he still had no problems healing himself back to full health.

While he recovered, he took a look at his notifications.

[Savage Dance lvl 10 -> lvl 11]

[Arcane Construct lvl 3 -> lvl 5]

[Pure Compression lvl 3 -> lvl 4]

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 3 -> lvl 5]

[Kinetic Reinforcement lvl 14 -> lvl 15]

Julius internally cheered, he had finally reached level 15 in [Kinetic Reinforcement]. It took putting himself in a lot of danger, but it paid off. He had accomplished his goal of evolving all his skills.

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

Skill [Kinetic Reinforcement] is evolving… possible advancements: [Advanced Kinetic Reinforcement], [Force Tempering], [Kinetic Augmentation], and [Kinetic Surge]

He had four options available to him. However, three of them were similar sounding skills. [Advanced Kinetic Reinforcement], [Force Tempering], and [Kinetic Augmentation] all sounded like they were skills meant to increase the physical abilities of his body. Much like how [Kinetic Reinforcement] had changed it, just at a higher level.

[Advanced Kinetic Reinforcement] was the usual direct upgrade, and a solid option if he didn't want to choose another option. [Force Tempering] was pretty intriguing. It was the only one that wasn't labeled as "Kinetic", which might mean it would temper his body against all forces, not just kinetic. If so, then Julius really liked that option. It might not be an offensive skill, but it could potentially be a reliable defensive upgrade.

[Kinetic Augmentation] reminded Julius of an artificial enhancement. If [Kinetic Reinforcement] strengthened what was already there, then [Kinetic Augmentation] might elevate his body to a whole other level. It might take him beyond mortal capabilities, and into the realm of superhuman.

Then there was [Kinetic Surge] to consider. It had to be an option because of how he had used kinetic energy to kill the last troll leader. If so, that was a potent weapon to have in his arsenal. His main worry was that the skill wouldn't provide a way for him to handle the stress of the skill.

If he didn't have [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] he would have lost not just his hand, but his entire arm. Not to mention how much damage it had done to every part of his body. It was not a skill he could use until either he got a much more robust physique or he got a Tier 2 body. However, one of them would require him to choose a skill other than [Kinetic Surge]. While the other would require him to wait until he tiered up. Even at his current fast pace, he couldn't see himself being able to advance before the rift collapsed or whatever was happening to it.

He would also be able to use the technique without the skill, albeit without such ease that the skill would provide. A part of him wanted to choose it anyway, just so that he would have it when he reached Tier 2. But the more rational part of him thought better of it.

He needed all the power he could get at this very moment. He could plan for the long-term all he wanted, but it meant nothing if he died tomorrow.

Therefore, he disregarded [Kinetic Surge], though it pained him to do so. Then he also eliminated [Advanced Kinetic Reinforcement], because while [Kinetic Reinforcement] was nice for when he first got it. It slowly showed its limitations as Julius got stronger. [Kinetic Reinforcement] made his skin, bones, and entire body tougher, but it wasn't even enough to endure even a single attack from the trolls. A halfhearted strike would shatter his body like a porcelain doll.

So it came down to deciding between [Force Tempering] and [Kinetic Augmentation]. He really liked the sound of [Force Tempering] because he felt like it would provide him the largest defensive benefit. But if he was being honest with himself, [Kinetic Augmentation] fit him better. Kinetic was one of his main affinities and his physical abilities could use a little "augmentation". Decision made, Julius selected [Kinetic Augmentation].

Congratulations, skill [Kinetic Augmentation] (Rare) acquired.

Julius began to feel a tingling from his head to his toes.

Oh come on, not this again, Julius prayed that the sensations would stop there. He forgot how painful receiving [Kinetic Reinforcement] was. The sensations started to dial-up and reached a point where they went from uncomfortable to outright painful. Thankfully, he was able to activate [Savage Dance] at will now and could offset a lot of the pain. But he still was not looking forward to what going to happen.

Julius isolated himself as far away from the pain as was able to but still felt like fire ants were gnawing on his bones. He couldn't imagine what it would feel like without numbing most of the pain.

Then the greedy perfectionist side of him reared its ugly head and he remembered how he implemented his healing skill during the process last time. He vividly recalled how the pain had increased due to the addition, but he also didn't forget how much more impressive the results ended up being.

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Gritting his teeth, he slowly fed life mana into the skill, and boy did it hurt. It was almost as bad as the first time. However, he attempted to shut the pain out concentrating on anything but the agony he was experiencing.

He could sense the effects of his stubbornness was working. His bones were taking in all the life and fire mana his healing skill provided, sucking them into his bones and flesh. Causing them to radiate with a luster that spoke of its potential power.

After the skill had run its course and he could feel it start winding down, Julius released his hold of [Savage Dance]. His body had a soreness that even [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] could not completely heal. But it felt immensely different.

He could immediately tell that his entire body had become much heavier and tougher than before. He also could feel that his body held a wellspring of power that was waiting to be unleashed. Every single molecule in his body was like it was supercharged with kinetic energy.

It was similar to a stable version of [Kinetic Surge]. It didn't have the explosiveness, but it was passively active and would continue to work without his attention and applied to every movement he made. He was very happy with the result. He didn't know how he would compare to a Tier 2 with an Affinity Body, but he couldn't imagine they were much stronger than his current self.

After his skill evolution, he took a breather to relax and wait for the worst of the soreness to dissipate. However, he did want to check his status in the meantime.

Name: Julius Von Hyperius

Tier: 1

Skills:

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 5] (Rare+)

[Spatial Perception lvl 19] (Rare)

[Savage Dance lvl 11] (Rare)

[Arcane Construct lvl 5] (Rare)

[Pure Compression lvl 4] (Rare)

[Kinetic Augmentation lvl 1] (Rare)

It was a very satisfying sight. He had managed to upgrade every one of his skills to (Rare), and in the case of [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] to (Rare+), which he was still very curious about. It was something he was going to look into in the future.

Speaking of that, he hadn't quite decided what he was going to do after the rift. His plan for years had always been to go to an academy to learn more about the world and advancing tiers in general. Lukas and Edwin had been really tight-lipped when it came to the details and requirements for advancement. They had only told him what he would need to do to reach Tier 2 and get his evolved body. However, they told him to wait until he reached the academy before he started to worry about the specifics of other tiers.

Therefore, Julius didn't know much about how the power structure worked in this world. He understood that tiers started at untiered and continued to go up until at least tier 6, but was that the limit? Or were there tiers beyond that? Furthermore, he didn't understand how to reach Tier 3. He was getting close enough to Tier 2, that he would need to start worrying about that pretty soon.

He still thought it was a good idea to go to an academy. Goldencrest was still his first choice, but even schools like Brightwood or Reyton would be a good option. But considering his situation, he had no idea where the nearest one would be.

If he was in the Endless Forest like he suspected, then it would be hard to get to any. The Endless Forest was a notorious piece of land within the southern region of the continent. It was technically under the Luminous Empire's rule, but no one really thought the Empire had any control of that territory. The Endless Forest took up a massive chunk of the Empire's land, and only a small portion of it was used to collect resources. The forest was split into several layers. As you made your way deeper into the forest, so would the threat level. The outermost layers started around an E or D-rank threat, go past that and it would be C or B-rank. Then once you enter the core of the forest, which was by far the largest part, A and S-rank threats were everywhere. Dragons and other exceedingly dangerous mythological beasts made their home in the core of the forest.

There haven't been many excursions past the first few layers, it was too difficult to find enough people who were powerful enough to travel so deep into a dangerous territory for an extended period. So information was relatively sparse.

The Luminous Empire had come to realize that it was not worth the risks to venture any deeper and anger its residents. They were satisfied with gathering materials from the outer layers and dealing with the occasional rift overflows every once in a while. Realizing that the rift overflows that occurred deep within the forest were taken care of by the very powerful denizens living there.

Luckily for Julius, he would guess he was in one of the outer layers. He hadn't seen any monsters other than the wolf, but many outer areas were quite barren of monsters from the years of gathering.

Still, the rift was bothering him. There shouldn't have been a Tier 3 rift where he was stranded. That on top of the fact that it had sucked him in was ringing the alarm bells in his head.

However, the fact remained that he had to clear the rift, and soon by the looks of it. The cracks in the sky were spreading even wider and he would estimate it would cover the sky within a week. He could figure out his education plans at a later date. His next goal was to decide how he wanted to kill the other hundreds of trolls.

The first idea he had was to use darkness to his advantage. He knew that the camp went to sleep at night and [Spatial Perception] would give him a large advantage. But he wouldn't be able to use [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] unless he doesn't use any fire mana with it, which lowered its efficiency.

But he thought he would place himself high on one of the mountain tops and rain down explosives. It's not very sporting, but neither is fighting hundreds of trolls by his lonesome. However, he was worried that his barrage wouldn't kill the trolls. He had only been able to kill them so far because of his accurate attacks. Relying on the subsequent explosions from the blast didn't sound like a good plan. A grievous wound to a human was practically a papercut to a troll since it could heal within a few seconds. He would just waste his mana and give up the game.

His other plan, which was the one he was leaning toward, was to just continue hunting them down. He could try to do it at night when they were unprepared, by sneaking into their camp and killing as many as he could before the other woke up. Then he would flee under the cover of darkness before they get organized.

It was the best plan he could come up with, and he knew anything more complicated would just be counter-productive. Odds were that once the fighting started, he would need to improvise either way.

Sneak in, do as much damage as he can, and run away. He liked simple plans and this one didn't get any simpler.