Path to Transcendence

Reinera POV

Reinera and Julius continued to put off their delve into the rift for the time being. Neither of them was in too much of a rush to get back to Heston.

Especially not when they had two very helpful people, personally tutoring them every day.

While Richard was helping Julius with [Thermal Empowerment], Rebecca was helping her with aura and willpower training.

Although she had exceptional mana control, her aura and willpower didn't quite match that standard. In particular, it was her willpower that was the thing that needed the most work.

That was where Rebecca came in. She had been a great help for her and her aura. The older woman used her aura to suppress Reinera's almost constantly.

She had to fight for every inch of the way. Rebecca not showing the least bit of mercy. Unlike many of the tutors she has had in the past who had been much more gentle with her.

She didn't know whether to love or hate that Rebecca was the complete opposite of that. The woman was like a demon when it came to training. She couldn't help but think that the woman would be a better fit for someone like Julius.

Speaking of Julius, she looked over to where he and Richard were sparring. Julius had recently gotten his new body enhancement skill and was getting used to it with Richard's help.

She had not really ever known how hard Julius trained.

During school, she mainly interacted with Julius in the library or the cafeteria. She didn't see him much outside of that.

And while she knew that he was stupidly strong for his tier, she had always believed that it was mainly talent that had gotten him there, much like her in a way.

It wasn't until the past few weeks occurred that she began to realize that Julius wasn't just talented, he was absurdly hard working on top of it.

She had heard things from his other friends such as Lily and Aubrey. They always joked about his training habits, but she didn't realize that they were actually being serious. She thought they were just exaggerating things, even after she learned of his strength.

They were right. Julius did not stop training.

Long after Reinera was done with her own willpower training, she would spend the rest of the day recovering or relaxing. Despite this, Julius continued to work on his skill far long after Richard was gone.

It made her feel lazy. Even though she wasn't, she couldn't help but feel that way. Seeing someone work that hard made one feel like their own efforts were insufficient. It didn't matter if that person in question was a maniac or not.

"Don't try to compare yourself to him, Grace," she heard Rebecca console her from the side.

She briefly glanced toward the woman who had snuck up behind her once again. "It's hard not to. We're about the same age after all," she replied.

"I'm serious. It won't do you any good. Trust me, my brother was exactly the same way. I tried to keep up with him, but no matter what, I wasn't able to," Rebecca said with a solemn frown.

"Your brother, Aden?"

"Yeah. I always like to tell people that his real talent wasn't his incredible comprehension or perfect affinity, that it was his love for the sword that got him there," she nodded at Reinera.

Reinera shook her head. Passion was a good word for it. Though, she could think of another word as well.

Obsession.

When she looked at Julius train for over ten hours non-stop, she saw obsession in his eyes. It was a mad glint of something that terrified her. But at the same time, it motivated her to try and keep up.

And keep up she would try.

She turned to look at Rebecca with a determined look on her face.

"Let's go one more time before we take a break."

Rebecca didn't even bat an eye and just smiled at her while shaking her head.

***

Julius POV

Julius was honestly surprised at how open Richard was with sharing his skills. Most people didn't like the share the details of their skills or abilities, and Julius was included on this list.

Richard didn't just tell him what kind of skill it was either. He was telling Julius exactly how he got it, including the names of the skills and Concepts he used to combine them.

Then again, it would probably be next to impossible to recreate the same skill as Richard even if Julius knew exactly the process.

Hell, even if Richard personally helped Julius, it would still be highly unlikely to be successful.

Pushing those negative thoughts away, he examined the swirling blue vortex in front of him with a small grin.

"Finally, I was thinking you would never let me delve," Julius said to the man next to him, not looking at him because he was already aware of the exasperated expression on the man's face.

"Don't be like that. There is no reason why you shouldn't take a bit of time to acclimate yourself to your tier and new skill. There are times when you need to slow down," Richard said to him.

"Is that why the Lord Marquis decided to assign you to me and Rebecca to Reinera?" Julius asked suddenly.

He was paying very close attention to Richard when he asked this question. He had been waiting for the right moment to slip this question in, wanting to catch Richard off guard a little bit and get a genuine reaction. After all he had been curious about it for a while now, but just hadn't had to opportunity to ask.

But his timing was the only reason why he even noticed a flicker in the man's facial features. His aura didn't show anything, but Julius wasn't naive.

Richard would never allow his aura to move outside of his control.

His facial expressions on the other hand… Well, that was something that the man seemed to have a harder time controlling.

"What's with the odd question?" Richard smoothly asked, as if nothing was wrong. That flicker was gone as quickly as it appeared, nowhere to be seen.

However, Julius forged ahead. Mostly confident of his next words.

"Just something something I realized not soon after we began training."

"And what's that?"

"You're here to teach me patience, whereas Rebecca is supposed to teach Grace urgency. Isn't that correct?" He asked, finally turning to look at the man in the eyes.

Richard must've decided to drop the act because he sagged his shoulders and gave Julius a long-suffering sigh.

"That's not the entire truth, Julius."

"So then what is?"

"The Patriarch did indeed request the two of us to teach you. But that doesn't mean we were against it either. You did save Cory after all. But the Patriarch also believed that Grace needed someone with a firmer hand in her training. He suspects that her trainers growing up, coddled her. And I lean toward agreeing with that sentiment, at least from what I have seen so far. Rebecca was a good choice. She is a brutal taskmaster and won't take lack of effort as an excuse for failure," Richard explained calmly.

"Okay… and about me?"'

"He said that you needed the opposite. You were your own firmest hand and you might benefit from someone who could force you to take a step back," he said with a shrug toward him.

Julius clenched his fist tightly before relaxing. He wasn't dumb enough to ignore the truth of those words.

"To my credit, I have been much better recently. My friends would be proud of the current me," he admitted a little defensively.

He saw Richard noticeably wince at that. Julius's words physically hurt the man. "What?" He asked when he saw the reaction.

"Nothing," Richard said softly.

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"..."

"Anyway, like I said, that's not the whole truth," Richard said in a hurry after a moment of awkward silence. "I'm not just here to teach you the value of balance and restraint. I am also here to help you build your foundation for your eventual advancement to Tier 4. You already have an Emblem and you have the willpower to use it, unlike Grace. But that's why Becca is helping her with that. That leaves me to help with the other smaller stuff, such as your body skill."

Julius could only nod at the man. He didn't really mind and he only asked that question because he had been curious about why Rebecca and Richard had been helping them so much, regardless of them saving their son. It seemed a little too good to be true.

Besides, he was grateful for the man's help, more than Julius had told him.

"What are you waiting for? Are you going to go in or not?" Richard said after another moment of silence.

Julius looked back toward the swirling blue portal that led to the rift with an excited smile. "You don't need to ask me twice," he said before reaching out and touching the vortex.

***

This rift wasn't the Challenge Rift. This was simply a rift that their retainers used to train their skills and abilities.

This particular rift was wonderful in that aspect. It was a straightforward rift with a simple task, fight the monsters.

The only way to clear the rift was to break the core at the center of the forest. This meant that it was difficult to accidentally clear the rift and it also meant that this rift had been around for many years.

The monsters were a variety of creatures. Most of them specialized in some kind of wind or earth affinity.

Julius was just excited to finally test out his skills now that he was in Tier 3.

Richard wasn't able to come along, the man was Tier 5, and the rift wouldn't be able to contain him without something bad happening.

This was why Julius was all alone. Richard was confident that Julius didn't need anyone to protect him though, it wasn't a particularly strong Tier 3 rift. Only the monsters toward the center, protecting the core were any real dangerous threat.

He wouldn't be going there though. He was just there to finally let loose and test out his Tier 3 abilities now that he had gotten used to the transition. With that being said, today was more about testing his [Thermal Empowerment] than anything else. He had gotten a couple of levels in it the past week or so of testing it out.

Richard now thought it would be a good idea to test it out on some Tier 3s and on a variety of opponents other than himself.

While Julius was walking around at the place he found himself transported to, he couldn't help but notice how windy it was.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

He knew that it was a wind aspected rift, but the noise from the wind was quite loud. The wind made the dense foliage of the trees whistle in a high-pitched whine.

In fact, it was so loud that he would have missed the missile that was tearing through the air behind his back if not for [Spatial Perception] and his mana senses.

He used [Flash Step] along with [Thermal Empowerment] to step aside and allow the projectile to pass by him unharmed. However, as he did, he noticed that it wasn't some sort of missile, but it was an actual monster.

He cocked his head sideways as he observed the cute-looking rabbit with a big ass horn on top of its skull. The rabbit itself was only about a foot or so tall, but the horn was almost the same size as it.

He almost laughed at the comical look of it. He would have too if it hadn't just almost speared him in the back of his neck.

What was also interesting was that the rabbit had used the ambient wind mana in the swirling wind to hide its presence. That was why Julius had failed to recognize it earlier.

It was a pretty nifty skill in his opinion.

He looked at it with an inquisitive stare. He half expected the monster to run away once its ambush had failed. But it was also a Rift monster, which meant it wasn't exactly normal.

However, before Julius could decide what to do in this situation, the rabbit decided for him. He felt a build-up of mana and the rabbit came blistering at him with impressive speed. This time he was better prepared and created a barrier with [Armaments of the Arcane] in front of him. Ever since he advanced to Tier 3, his mana responded so nicely. He barely had to concentrate, merely thinking about it activated the skill.

He winced as the rabbit crashed into the barrier with a bone-crushing crack. Its horn failed to penetrate the barrier and Julius just watched as the rabbit slowly slid down the side of the barrier, completely lifeless.

He suspected that it had broken its neck during that exchange. Kind of like how a bird broke its neck when crashing into a window.

He could only shake his head before continuing to explore the rift, hoping he would find some nice opportunities to test his [Thermal Empowerment] skill.

Maybe he would make a breakthrough with his new skills, he certainly wouldn't mind something like that.