Path to Transcendence

Chapter 13: Late Night Tribulations

Learning how to use life mana on himself was much easier than learning to use the kinetic mana or energy. The most difficult part of it was timing the release of the kinetic force with his strikes. It wasn’t like life mana, where he could just infuse every part of himself with it.

No, kinetic mana needed to be accumulated and then released. Even after a couple of hours of practice, Julius hadn’t managed to successfully deliver a strike with kinetic mana. Frustrated, Julius chose to take a break for the day. Being stubborn could sometimes be a blessing, but a curse at the same time. He needed to try again tomorrow with a fresh head.

So after dinner, he found himself outside in the training yard by himself. He was going to try using fire mana this time, and he didn’t want to risk setting his room on fire. At least here, not much to burn down, only stone and dirt,

Julius sat down and began focusing on the task at hand. Fire magic was supposed to be relatively easy to use. It was an affinity highly desired for combat because of its offensive potential and ease of learning. The hard part was controlling the flames with any measure of success.

He started to gather fire mana from his core with an obsessive single-mindedness. He wasn’t going to fail again today. Once he accumulated enough mana, he willed it to ignite. For a moment, nothing happened. The mass of fire mana just sat there idle.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed hard. Visualizing a spark that ignites the fire mana into an explosion of flame.

Then there was a huge release, and a pillar of fire blasted right in front of his face and up to the night sky.

He flinched backward and dove out of the way. Julius had been inches away from burning his face off. He was so worried about just creating fire magic that he didn’t even think about where it was going to go.

Getting back to his original position, he took a deep breath. Once he calmed himself, he tried again. This time, he used about half the amount. It came much more easily, and he immediately felt he could ignite it whenever he wanted. However, unlike last time, he imagined a spike of flame constructed from the fire mana.

What appeared was an uneven red stick that wobbled in the air. It was a start at least. He tried to carefully fix the shape. He didn’t want to accidentally release the volatile fire mana that it was made up of. At first, he tried to change the shape after putting a dozen feet between him and the stick-like mana construct. Unfortunately, it seemed to become much harder to manipulate its shape the farther away he got.

At last, he got closer to the scary fire stick and began to change its shape. He handled it like a newborn baby. The last thing he wanted was for it to explode in his face again. With a tight grip around it, he could feel the fire mana slowly dissipating.

Thinking for a bit, he started to feed more mana into it. He concentrated on making it more uniform across the length. Ever so slowly, the uneven stick turned into a red pencil-like object. It wasn’t pretty by any means, but at least now it looked like it could fly through the air.

Excited, he quickly aimed the fire arrow at the nearest training dummy. The dummy was made of wood and reinforced steel. So it was a good target to see how it was. Julius focused on making it fly toward the target and then explode.

The results were anticlimactic. He had imagined an arrow of fire launching through the air and exploding the dummy into pieces. Instead, the arrow of fire was still moving at the pace of a slow jog.

It would be a wonderful technique if his opponent were a turtle. Julius needed it to go faster.

Once the arrow of fire landed on the target, an explosion erupted with a bang. It had scorched the dummy pretty badly, leaving some burn marks over the surface.

Power-wise, it was far beyond what he thought should have been possible for his rank. It might have been the result of condensing his mana so much before he formed his core, but he didn’t have anything to compare it to. He certainly felt like his mana was potent and still hadn’t come close to emptying it, but he had no context.

While the power was impressive, the speed was atrocious. It moved like a fat slug crawling across the floor. But he had an idea about what he could do to fix that.

He believed that he was controlling the mana too tightly. It felt as if he was guiding the mana to the target, not releasing it. With a brand new idea in mind, he tried again.

This time, he carefully formed a much smaller bullet-sized construct. It barely took any mana to form. Then he envisioned what he wanted it to do. He wanted to recreate a bullet being fired from a rifle. Hence, he wanted to create an explosion behind the actual projectile that would generate enough force to shoot it towards his target.

The only issue he could foresee was that the mana construct would not be able to handle the force of the explosion and would just blow up instantly.

Therefore, Julius wanted to start slow. At first, he wanted to create an explosion that would shoot the fire bullet at a reasonable speed. Something he felt like he could control, or at least that would keep the bullet together so that it wouldnʼt blow up in his face.

Julius held the bullet a foot away from him and focused on creating a small burst of energy behind the bullet.

He immediately stopped what he was doing. Was he dumb or something? Why would he think setting off a small bomb in front of his face was any better? He had seen what that small, deformed arrow had done to the target. If that was his face, he might have gotten seriously injured or even killed.

He was so set on creating little fire bombs that he could shoot at enemies that he forgot that most fire users did not use fire mana in this way. The typical way fire mana was used followed how he had used it the first time. Others would manifest streams of fire towards their enemy, similar to a flamethrower. It wasn’t until they reached Tier 2 that they began using more advanced techniques, such as a fire bolt.

He felt stupid. Here he was, late at night, practicing deadly techniques that could blow him up, without Edwin or anyone to look over him. He may have a life affinity now, but it wasn’t anywhere close to good enough to heal from 3rd-degree burns. He realized he had been impatient for so many years, not being able to use magic, and he was getting way ahead of himself.

Mentally reprimanding himself that magic wasn’t a toy, he slowed down and practiced just igniting fire as he did before. He started with small amounts that he would then release outward, careful not to burn himself.

He had to admit to himself that while he wasn’t making firebombs, he was having a lot of fun. After a while, he was experimenting with how various shapes of fire mana would create different flames.

He was so focused on playing with his fire that hours passed by without him realizing it. By now, he had become more familiar with the steps of gathering and igniting, and the process had become more cohesive. Julius was now able to summon fire over his palm without burning himself at will. He could also maneuver it with increasing precision.

At the moment, he had split the fire into several thin ribbons and was trying to recreate complex shapes like a double helix, or even animate little stick figures. They weren’t pretty, but he thought if someone were to see it, they would have a good guess of what it was.

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Julius didn’t quite comprehend it, but he started to see how far along his mana manipulation had come. He didn’t have the skill, so it was hard to measure his progress. Nevertheless, he still remembered how hard it was to form a simple triangle with mana when he first started.

If his first attempts were like a toddler learning to write, the current him was incomparable. He was curious what his skill level would have been if he had the skill. He was confident it would have reached its first rank by now, getting a neat upgrade, and a small part of him regretted not going with [Mana Manipulation]. But he knew that in the long run, he would be better off not leaning on the crutch of the skill. He had felt what the skill was like. It was comparable to [Focus], and it practically did half the work by itself. With [Mana Manipulation], he might not have spent as much time challenging himself to find ways to improve. His creativity and connection with mana had been the main benefits of using it naturally.

Julius didn’t know what time it was, but he checked how much mana he had left in his core. He was still full on his life and kinetic mana, but his fire mana was at just under fifty percent. Honestly, way more than he would have thought after such extensive practice. With that being said, he wasn’t using large amounts at a time, and whenever he could, he would try to recycle as much as he could back into his core. So he could see why he still had so much left.

In any case, Julius felt like it was a productive night and had improved by a large margin. He was very happy with himself; he didn’t know that playing around with fire could be so entertaining. But it was about time to head back in and go to sleep. He still had early training with Edwin after all.

As he got up from his position in the training yard, he looked around, taking in the beautiful crisp night air. There weren’t any clouds obscuring the night sky and the dazzling stars.

It was late at night, so many of the lights were turned off around the estate, and it was hard to see where he was going. Therefore, he turned on [Spatial Perception] to find his way back to his room. Once he entered the wing where he, his uncle, and Edwin lived, Julius felt something.

It was a tingling sensation that crept up his spine. The dark hallways that were only lit with the occasional glow of mana lamps were quite eerie when he noticed them. He shouldn’t be scared. After all, he wasn’t actually a kid and knew there weren’t monsters hiding in the walls anymore.

Despite that, he still activated [Spatial Perception] to the limit, just to make sure. He knew he was being paranoid, but it was good practice anyway, he told himself.

However, he picked up something at the edge of his senses. A mixture of nervousness and curiosity went through him. He intensified his ability and directed it toward where he detected something.

It was a figure hiding in the shadows down the hall. Julius froze in terror. His heart just stopped, and his stomach felt like someone had just stabbed an icy dagger right into it.

A worker? No, there are never any around this time of night. Even if they were, why are they hiding in the shadows? If I didn’t have [Spatial Perception], I would not have ever noticed them. An intruder? How did someone make it inside the mansion? Even getting into the estate should be impossible.

A thousand questions and no answers ran through his head. He didn’t know whether the person was watching him. Should he pretend that nothing was wrong? Or should he confront him? No, confronting is a really bad idea. If the person was hostile, there was nothing Julius could do. You didnʼt just break into House Hyperius’s property without some strength backing you up.

Luckily, the person should not have been given any reason to notice Julius. To his knowledge, [Spatial Perception] didn’t let others know he could perceive them.

Okay, so pretending I didn’t notice him is my first step. But what do I do after that?

Julius started to walk again like nothing had happened, making his way to his room. He was so anxious and scared. What if the person thought Julius was suspicious anyway and decided to come out of hiding to silence him? Julius swore the person could hear his heart pounding in his chest from where he was. His legs were shaking from the fear and adrenaline coursing through him.

Julius needed to figure out a plan quickly. There wasn’t much time left before he reached his room, and once he got there, he wouldn’t have another chance. He couldn’t just go into his room and hide. If they were here to harm them, hiding inside his room would just guarantee his death, as well as Lukas’s and Edwin’s.

The first thing that popped into his head was alerting Edwin and Lukas to the danger. With panic-filled desperation, he pushed [Spatial Perception] to its limits, trying to see what was happening in his uncle’s and Edwin’s rooms.

He could make out both of their bodies sleeping in their beds. Unfortunately, he also noticed several more figures outside their hallways. They all seemed to be surrounded by some sort of shadow mana, hiding their presence.

Julius wouldn’t be able to reach their doors without being seen by the intruders. How was he going to wake them up without grabbing attention? He purposefully slowed his walk to give himself more time to think about what he could do.

Yet, Julius wasn’t able to come up with anything. The only plan he could come up with was to get as close as he could to their rooms and shout as loud as he could.

It wasn’t much of a plan. Honestly, it was a shit plan. But he had nothing else.

Julius took a slow breath and steeled himself. He needed to use [Spatial Perception] and pay close attention to the intruderʼs movements. It was essential to get as close as he could before they noticed something was up.

If he could get to either Lukas or Edwin, he would have a much better chance of surviving. But Julius suspected that they would try to kill him before he could reach the door.

Acting as casually as Julius could, he walked towards Edwin’s door. It was the closet of the two and was twenty paces down the hall from his room.

At the moment, twenty paces felt like crossing the ocean. He could feel all the intrudersʼ gazes shift towards him as he passed the door to his room. Julius faked a yawn and stretched, trying to lower their guard even a little.

Fifteen paces away. They probably realized that Julius had just walked past his door and was walking toward the others.

Keeping his focus on every inch of their movements, Julius was ready to act at the slightest indication they were going to stop him. [Spatial Perception] was the only thing going for him. They didn’t have a reason to suspect him of knowing they were there.

Ten paces. Julius felt the one who was closest to Edwin’s door shift ever so slightly. Fortunately, they were the only person who seemed likely to make a move at the moment. The rest were still just tracking him from the shadows with their eyes.

Five paces. The person seemed to grow suspicious of Julius and removed a small knife from inside his clothing. Then he stood up and slowly walked towards Julius’s position.

Julius finally arrived right in front of Edwin’s door. The person was now just a few steps behind him, silently getting closer. If it wasn’t for his skill, he would have never known he was there. Julius was unable to fully control his breathing, and his hands were slick with his sweat.

With a jolt of fear, he felt the person’s muscles tense. Julius was able to recognize the telltale signs of when someone was about to strike.

Unbelievably fast, the intruder delivered a strike at his head that would have killed him. Luckily for him, Julius, already moving. He threw himself down, supporting his hands on the door, and launched a kick at the intruderʼs face.

Julius hadn’t managed to time a kinetic strike a single time today. However, when everything was on the line and he was on the edge of death, Julius delivered his first kinetic strike.

Julius didn’t hold back whatsoever. He loaded as much mana into his leg and blasted it into the intruder’s face. The force of the kick knocked the intruder only a few feet back, surprising him more than actually hurting him.

Julius, on the other hand, felt like he just kicked a steel wall. The recoil of the strike threw him head-first into the wooden door to Edwin’s room. The door was unable to take it, and the hinges blew off the door.

Julius was thrown into the middle of the room, dazed from breaking the door with his face. It was only by instinct that he was saved from the follow-up from the intruder. He still had residual kinetic mana left in his leg and used it to literally throw himself away from the knife coming for his throat. Even though he moved before the man even struck, the knife still nicked him right under his chin.

However, he was unbalanced now and in no position to evade the next attack. The extreme usage of kinetic mana had left his legs a painful mess, and he couldn’t move. But he wouldn’t go out quietly. Not like before. While he would undoubtedly die again, he would go out fighting this time.

In his final seconds, time slowed to a crawl. Julius didn’t have anything else on his mind except to compress as much fire and kinetic mana as possible. To the outside world, it seemed like in the blink of an eye a violet-colored orb of mana was created and shot out.

Julius, all the while, could only stare at the knife that was heading straight at his eye. Beyond the edge of the knife, he could see the surprise and fear in the assassinʼs eyes behind their mask.

I gave it my all. He thought to himself with a pained grin.