Path to Transcendence

Chapter 93: [Swordsmanship] Evolution

Arnold’s Armaments was a wonderful little shop. It didn’t look like much from the outside, by all appearances it was a very plain storefront. But the inside was a different story altogether. It was immaculate. The entire store had gorgeous glass displays with various accessories and weapons.

On the wall were blades of all kinds. From rapiers to broadswords, Julius could see pristine weapons of all kinds on show. Julius’s gramps used to take him to knife shops frequently when he was younger, and this store reminded him a lot of it.

Declan and his family seemed to know the man as well. The second they walked through, little Gabby ran up to the counter where the man was already smiling seeing the little girl approach.

Julius noticed that Abby was walking up behind him with [Spatial Perception]. He turned his head to look over his shoulder and met her eyes as she approached him. Then he turned back to watch the interaction between the older man and the young girl.

Abby stopped as she reached next to him. “Arnold and his wife have been good friends to my family and me for years. He and my father used to adventure together. Then one day he found himself settling down with his wife and opened this little shop.”

Julius fully turned his body around as she explained that to him. “He makes everything here?” He asked her. He was curious, not many adventurers had the skills to take on crafting after they were done. There were only so many skills slots one had and using some for crafting was never a good idea.

Abby laughed lightly. “Oh no. No, his wife is the daughter of a blacksmith and he taught her everything he knew about the craft. Arnold did end up removing some of his more specific skills to take up some new ones but his wife makes most of the items here. Her father has some things he sells as well, but the majority is her’s.”

“So why not name the shop after her then? Why Arnold’s Armaments?” Julius asked confused. He would expect that a store called “Arnold Armaments” would sell armaments made from Arnold. Otherwise, they should have called it “Arnold’s Wife’s Armaments”.

She laughed again. “My daughter had the same exact question. ‘Why is it called Arnold Armaments if you don’t make anything’, she asked.” Abby shook her head in amusement. “Apparently, Arnold’s wife really liked the alliteration of the name. She is also very superstitious and said the numbers were lucky or something. I don’t fully understand what she means, but it works so I can’t say anything.”

Julius had met some people who had similar beliefs. There was a girl he knew who really believed in numerology and used it to decide everything. She was a nice girl, just a little odd, always counting anything she saw and commenting on whether or not it was a good sign or not. However, it was interesting to see that there were similar beliefs in this world as well.

The rest of the day was very nice. Julius got to know each of Declan’s family members and got to know some of the shop owners as well. Declan and his family were quite renowned around Heston it seemed.

Even with his newfound wealth, Julius did not end up buying anything. Truthfully, the fact that he was now the owner of such a vast amount of wealth was still not quite hitting him yet. He understood when Declan had told him that powerful people would consider the amount he had as a paltry sum, but to a person who had only the limited experience that Julius did, it was hard to comprehend.

There was an interesting development though. At the end of their shopping trip, Julius had wanted to go back to Arnold’s Armaments and see if he could get the chieftain troll’s core made into an accessory. However, when Julius was bringing out the core to hand over to Arnold, Drasil decided to make an appearance.

The little life spirit, who was usually sleeping in his core came zooming out and wrapped his arms around the core like it was a treasured item. Julius looked on as the cute green spirit bear-hugged the core with a content smile on his face.

Julius did not know quite why Drasil was acting like that, but he suspected it had to do with the fact that the core was life-attributed. With Drasil taking such a liking to it, Julius could not find it in himself to take away the core from Drasil or to make it into an accessory. He would allow Drasil to cherish it for a bit more. After all, Julius was surprised that the little glutton wasn’t even trying to suck any of the life essence out of the core.

Drasil was acting like the core was some sort of heated blanket or stuffed animal. He didn’t even try to go back into Julius’s core once he got his arms around it. He just draped himself over it, while Julius carried the little spirit with both hands.

Realizing that the spirit had no intention of going back into his core, at least for now, Julius tucked him away gently into one of his jacket pockets. The little guy quickly fell asleep and maintained a firm and possessive grip over the core.

I guess no accessory for me. He joked to himself.

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A small part of Julius was a little sad that he wasn’t able to make an item out of it. After all, he had been planning to make one almost immediately after he had extracted the core. But seeing Drasil enjoying so much was better in every way.

Arnold had been observing the entire interaction but said nothing. Julius just saw the older man gently chuckle to himself and didn’t try to bring it up again, just forgetting anything happened.

There was a temptation for him to buy himself some sort of weapon. But Declan told him before that he didn’t think he should get one. His reason was that most weapons you found on display were for Tier 1 or Tier 2 individuals. Most of the weapons for Tier 3 were custom made or in a backroom.

However, since Julius was not an average Tier 2, he didn’t think most weapons would bring him that much advantage. He believed that most Tier 2 gloves wouldn’t be as strong as the constructs Julius could make around his fist.

The only things Declan recommended was for Julius to buy some general survival gear, like a water canteen with a water enchantment, some sort of tent, detection rods, and anything else he might need if he were to be alone in the wilderness again. He also wanted Julius to get a communications device so that he could stay in contact with them.

He was supposed to get one from Gabriel the other day, but the big professor must had forgotten. But now that Julius had come into some money, he didn’t need Gabriel to do that for him. So before he left the shopping area he picked up some survival gear that Declan recommended as well as a simple communication device.

He could connect with several other devices and as long as he was within distance he would be able to communicate with them. It was similar to a walkie talkie. He got Declan’s contact information as well as his wifeʼs, just in case.

It was already later in the afternoon and Julius was about to head back to campus. He still had some things he wanted to get done. He still needed to decide which version of [Swordsmanship] he would get.

He really wanted to see if there was a certain skill that he could get if he got both [Mana Slash] and [Aura Slash]. If so then that would be a skill he would be very interested in getting. Otherwise, he would probably choose [Mana Slash] at this time. He knew that the general evolved rare version of [Mana Slash] was [Mana Strike] and that [Mana Strike] would most likely go very well with [Arcane Construct], [Pure Compression], and maybe the evolved form of [Mana Layering].

When he got back, Julius went straight to the library. The others had plans already and wouldn’t be back until after dinner, so he would be alone for the time being. Which felt weird considering that he had been spending so much time with them lately. The only time when he wasn’t with one of them was during one of his first-year classes, or if it was late at night during one of his practice sessions.

He finally found out that the librarian’s name was Beth and also learned that she had been working as a Goldencrest librarian for the past two decades. He asked Beth where he could find something that talked about evolved skills for [Mana Slash] and [Aura Slash]. She didn’t know of an exact reference for that particular combination, but she did have him looking in a section where it was most likely he could find what he was looking for.

After several hours, he finally found a journal written by a Tier 3 warrior who had gotten both [Mana Slash] and [Aura Slash]. The good news was that he did get an evolved skill out it, the bad news was that he went on to say that the skill wasn’t that impressive.

The skill was called [Essence Slash] and was basically an attack skill that had the properties of both mana and aura. It was a rare-ranked skill, so it was pretty powerful on its own, but he found that it wasn’t necessarily more powerful just because it used both mana and aura.

If anything it was sometimes weaker than just specializing in one or the other. The main advantage of the skill was that it allowed him to be more effective against someone who had really good mana-based defenses or the opposite and had really good aura-based defensive skills.

After reading the Tier 3’s account, Julius didn’t feel like he wanted to go down that route. It was important to note that even though the man had gotten [Essence Slash] didn’t mean that Julius would as well. Skills weren’t so straightforward after all.

He could just as easily get a skill called [Mana-Aura Slash] or some other name. However, what did disinterest him was that the skill itself seemed more like a jack-of-all-trades type of skill. Maybe if he wanted to save himself some skill slots and have a way to break down mana and aura-based defenses he might go in that direction, but for now, he wanted something that would synergize well with some of his other skills.

Julius didn’t even end up going to dinner. For one, he was too submerged in his own research that he lost track of time, but even after he realized that he was going to miss dinner, he still didn’t go. Without the others around, the odds of some other upperclassmen causing trouble for him were much higher. Also, if he could avoid Liam, that was just an additional benefit.

Something that he found very annoying was that epic-ranked skills were much harder to find written accounts about. General and uncommon skills were written about plenty, but when it came to finding things about rare-ranked or epic skills it became a much more difficult endeavor.

Everything he was able to find was making him believe that [Mana Slash] was the best option. There were many great evolutions after it and if it didn’t work out then he would just find another skill that would work. He still had one more skill slot, and if he needed to delay getting a movement skill like [Quick Step] then he could wait.

He wanted to prioritize getting his first epic skill first. Not only would it give him some slots to use more freely, but he heavily suspected he would see an amazing improvement once he did. The more he read about higher-ranked skills, the more Julius understood that there was a large gap between those with an epic-ranked skill and those without.

He didn’t waste any more time and concentrated on his skill and willed it to evolve. There was always a period of anxiety before he evolved a skill. He never was a hundred percent confident that he chose the right one, but he trusted his intuition and the research he had done.

Congratulations, skill [Mana Slash] (Uncommon) acquired.