Path to Transcendence

Chapter 98: Odd Man Out

Julius technically still had some classes for the day, but he decided to wait until tomorrow to go back. After all, what was a day extra going to do? He had already missed two weeks. The good news was that Gabriel assured him that it wasn’t unusual for students to not attend class for a while because of their focus on their own advancement. Some had to take extended breaks in order to break through a Tier or gain enlightenment on a Concept.

With that being said, it was more for older students, but on rare occasions, younger students had to do so as well. Therefore, Julius should not have to worry about anyone causing any problems for him. Gabriel told him that he would talk to the other professors for him just in case.

Back to the subject of Concepts, Julius thought that Sharpness was a Concept that he would gladly take and use for his skills. But he wondered what would happen if he learned a Fire Concept, a Life Concept, and maybe a Kinetic Concept. What would that mean for his skills?

Did skills need an appropriate Concept to evolve to epic or did any Concept qualify? It would seem a little weird if you could evolve a fire skill with something like an Ice Concept. Perhaps that was the reason why [Spatial Perception] hadn’t evolved yet, even though it had been at level 19 for a long time.

It was an interesting idea. If that’s true, what kind of Concept would [Spatial Perception] need? Would it require a Space Concept if that even existed? Or could he use any Concept? He probably should have asked more questions before he left Gabriel. But in his defense, he hadn’t thought of that until now.

He didn’t want to think about that for now. He had looked in the library about the other options he had been offered earlier. The only two that had him reconsidering [Composite Mana] were [Compound Barrier] and [Compound Strike]. After looking at what little the library had to offer about those skills, Julius was able to at least find out that those two skills were quite highly rated when it came to rare skills. He didn’t know if they were rare+, but then again, he had seen almost nothing regarding rare+ skills in his time in the library.

The interesting thing about those two skills that tempted Julius was the fact that both skills were regarded as very good amplifiers for either defense or offense. The thing that Julius didn’t really know about was if he were to choose [Composite Mana] would three of his skills synergize or would it take more?

Most of the time, skill synergies happened in groups of three, but there were definitely cases when that wasn’t required. There were evolved skills that required two like [Savage Dance] and sometimes even four skills.

Would it be better to choose [Compound Strike] and hope that the skill alone would be enough to combine with [Arcane Construct] and [Pure Compression]? Or would it be better to choose [Composite Mana] and still plan on combining the evolved version of [Mana Slash]?

At this point, he wanted to wait and see what he would get from [Mana Slash]. It was practically guaranteed that he would get offered [Mana Strike], but he was also curious what other skills would be offered if they would be better fits for what he had in mind.

Julius packed up his stuff and headed over to the cafeteria. He was excited to finally eat a real meal and see the others as well. Two weeks was a long time considering that they had only known each other for a short while. He hoped that they weren’t mad or treated him differently because of it.

Whenever he entered the cafeteria he found himself keeping a close eye on anyone that might cause him problems. There were particular people he always kept an eye on. Liam and his buddies were one of them. But there were also some upperclassmen who Julius caught looking at him a little too intently.

He didn’t know the exact reasons why they did, but he kept an eye on them just to be safe. If they headed in his direction, he would purposefully make sure to head off in the opposite direction to avoid them.

Luckily, his first day back was met with no troubles. No Liam or his cronies bothered him and he was able to get himself a plate of food without issues. He saw the others at their regular table and Lily like always was the first to spot him.

Her waving got the attention of the others and they all turned to look at him approaching the table. He saw Edgar scooch over a smidge, to allow Julius a space to sit next to him. He gratefully took it, placing his tray down on the table before sitting down.

He noticed that all of their eyes were focused on him intensely. Even Kyle was staring at him like he was trying to burn a hole through his forehead. It was funny in a way. They were so obviously curious but were also trying their best not to come off as too eager and give him some space.

Lily was pretending to focus on her food, but Julius could sense her reaching out trying to probe him subtly, it wasn’t something he would have been able to manage before, but seeing the way she used her psychic abilities so often had helped on that front.

Derek wasn’t using any of his aura or mana, but he was still frequently looking up at Julius, waiting for him to explain the situation to them. Edgar was just Edgar. He was the most unbothered out of all of them. He had given a friendly bump to him when Julius sat down and proceeded to finish his meal.

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It wasn’t to anyone’s surprise that Aubrey was the one who couldn’t hold her tongue.

“Are we just not going to talk about it?” She asked impatiently.

“Talk about what?” Julius asked innocently with a smile.

“Oh don’t you even start you little brat,” she stood up and wagged her finger at Julius.

Julius dramatically clutched his heart and gasped in shock. “After all this time we haven’t seen each other and you treat me like this?”

He felt Lily give him a mental shock with one of her skills. “Ouch!”

He looked at Lily in surprise. She almost never did that, only when she was really annoyed with him.

She glared at Julius from across the table. “I want to know too. I have been plenty patient these last couple of weeks, but now it’s time for you to start talking mister.”

Julius looked over at Edgar who was spectating while chewing his food with a smile. He gave the big softy a pleading look, but Julius was shocked to see Edgar shake his head and look down at his plate, avoiding eye contact. To be fair, he didn’t blame him either, Lily was scary when she was mad.

Then he turned to the two other males at the table. However, coincidentally both Kyle and Derek had also found the grains of the table awfully interesting. It seems that I will not be getting any help from these guys, Julius thought to himself.

He would remember this though. If any of them needed assistance from the two girls, Julius wouldn’t lift a finger.

Once he understood that he wasn’t going to be receiving any assistance and that he had to placate the girls on his own, he put his hands up like he was surrendering.

“Wait, before you guys get any more angry, I just wanted to say how grateful I am that you guys were so understanding,” he said gently, trying to butter them up a little bit.

“Stop that, we know what you are trying to do,” Aubrey said testily.

Damn it.

“I’m being serious. Two weeks is a long time and I didn’t even keep in touch so I understand why you guys are upset. But I wanted to let you know that I got a lot done if that has any merit.”

“It depends, are you going to tell us what took you an entire two weeks to do?” Aubrey asked him.

“I was working on some skills. I have been wanting to get an epic skill for a while now and wanted to take some time to focus on a few skills I think would synergize nicely into one,” Julius explained carefully.

Lily and Aubrey looked at him with frowns.

“An epic skill? Already? Why are you focusing on that? You should be focusing on slowly making your way to Tier 3 and getting the rest of your skill slots filled out and up to rare. Then level those up,” Lily said.

Do they not know that I have almost all of my skill slots filled up and that most of my skills are already at the high end of rare? I would have sworn that they would have realized that by now. How else would I have been able to keep up with them?

He was far away from getting to Tier 3 anytime soon if he was being honest. Unless he found another Rift or some sort of life-threatening situation, he didn’t see himself getting to Tier 3 for quite a while.

Getting to Tier 3 required insights into one’s self, Professor Youma discussed the importance of “enlightenment”. Stating that the process would begin when one’s core, body, and soul all merged into one. It was necessary to put pressure on oneself to ignite the advancement.

He looked at the two of them and scratched his head awkwardly. “Yeah, about that.”

“Wait, how many skills do you have?” This time it was Derek who had interrupted. It appeared that he no longer found any interest in the table and was finally looking at Julius.

Julius felt Lily put up her isolation barrier before the conversation even started, so he wasn’t worried about other students listening in.

“I currently have nine, but am hoping once I get it done, that I will have many more open slots.”

“Hold up. You have nine already?” Aubrey asked him.

“What you guys don’t?” Julius was surprised. He would think that all of them would have most if not their entire skill slot filled up by now.

Aubrey shook her head emphatically. “Not when we were just entering Tier 2. My parents had me focus on a handful of skills before I ended up getting more. They wanted me to concentrate on a particular style, and then build around that. It was only when I was about to enter Tier 3 that I had to focus on filling out more of my skill slots and get them to rare.”

Huh, that sounds actually very reasonable. Julius thought to himself.

“The same thing for me as well. My father had me learn [Mana Manipulation], [Object Control], [Meditation], and [Mind Manipulation]. Then he had me only focus on those skills for years before I acquired any other branches of skills,” Lily added from the side.

Julius never did have a traditional upbringing, so it was interesting to hear how the others were brought up.

“You guys never were curious and got a skill even though your parents told you not to?” He asked them.

“No, why would you do that? You have only so many skill slots and one of the first things we were made to understand was how important each one was,” Aubrey stated. “Wait, did you?” She asked, making a face that one gives to someone who has done something stupid.

“Eh… Not really. Either way, couldn’t you just remove a skill if you don’t like it?” Julius asked casually.

Aubrey, Lily, and Derek chuckled upon hearing that. The only ones who weren’t laughing were Edgar and Kyle. The two of them were looking at Julius with weird expressions on their faces. Eventually, the others stopped laughing when they saw that Julius and the others weren’t.

Aubrey froze and said, “Holy shit, you were being serious.”

Julius was confused. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? Am I missing something?”

The others all looked at each other and back at Julius. He felt like he was the odd man out and wasn’t understanding the joke. Julius had the inkling that he was missing something important.