Path to Transcendence

Chapter 99: Try Not to Ravage Your Soul

Julius wanted someone to explain to him why the others were staring at him like that. All he had mentioned was removing skills from one of the skill slots. He didn’t see why they would be reacting like this.

“Can someone please explain why you are all looking at me like that?” Julius asked pleadingly.

Edgar gently placed an arm on Julius’s shoulder. “You really don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Edgar looked at Julius seriously. “Removing skills is a very dangerous thing to do. There have been times when someone was removing one of their skills and their soul literally collapsed from the trauma.”

Huh? What are they talking about? I removed a skill before and I was just fine.

“I’ve removed a skill in the past though and I was fine,” he openly confessed.

Aubrey slapped her forehead in disbelief, then closed her eyes and shook her head. “Of course you did.”

The others had similar reactions. “Why the hell would you take a risk like that? Do you know what could have happened to you?” Lily angrily asked.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know at the time. No one explained that part to me,” Julius tried to explain to the irate woman.

Honestly, nobody had told Julius about that part. He thought that Edwin or Lukas would have told him, it seemed awfully important. Edwin had only mentioned that there would be extreme pain, not the debilitating injury like the others were making it out to be.

“I was told that skill removal was painful not something that dangerous,” he told the others.

“It is painful, but it is also a very stupid thing to do,” Aubrey reprimanded him.

“How many times?” Kyle asked quietly.

“Sorry?”

“How many times did you remove a skill?” He repeated.

“Only once, and it was years ago,” Julius answered.

The others sighed in relief. “Okay, you will be fine but do not remove any of your skills that you have had for a long time or if they are at rare,” Kyle calmly explained to him.

“Okay, I won’t. But why is that?” Julius asked curiously.

“Skills become an intrinsic part of your soul, and after a while of using them and progressing them, they get tied together so tightly with your soul, that they practically become one. Hence, if you remove one, it is similar to tearing out a piece of your soul,” Kyle told him.

Okay, so no more skill removal. I am very glad that I found that out before I tried to remove a skill that I didn’t like.

He was very grateful that he had dodged that bullet.

“Okay, okay, I won’t remove any more skills. I promise,” he swore to them.

He looked around at the others and every one of them was skeptical. It was like they didn’t believe him and thought that he would most definitely try to remove a skill in the future regardless. To be fair, they had a point. Julius had a habit of doing stupid things, and they didn’t even know how bad it sometimes gets.

“Okay, we got taken off track. We were talking about you trying to acquire an epic skill right?” Aubrey asked.

Julius nodded his head.

“Right, so why do you want one so bad?”

“Isn’t that obvious? I want to get stronger,” he said.

Edgar interrupted. “There are easier ways to get stronger than gaining an epic-rank skill you know.”

“I don’t know about that. I just reached Tier 2 and to be honest I was a little disappointed at the increase in power I got. Sure I can use mana more efficiently and everything got a slight increase, but I am looking for something a little more drastic,” Julius explained.

“How many rare skills do you have currently?” Derek asked from the side.

Julius turned to him. “I have seven and a half.”

“Seven?” Aubrey exclaimed.

“Seven and a half?” Derek had a very confused look on his face.

“Yeah, what do you mean by half?” Edgar asked him.

“I have one skill that I haven’t chosen the evolution to yet. So technically it is still an uncommon skill…”

“What kind of- “

Aubrey cut off Derek just as he was going to ask another question. “Wait, are we just going to ignore that he just said he had seven rare skills already?”

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“Well what did you expect, he did beat you that time. Wouldn’t you be more angry if he didn’t have at least that?” Edgar asked her.

She stood up and slapped Edgar hard on the shoulder. “First off, that wasn’t a real match. Second, I still think he has some kind of bloodline, especially after he said he was from House Hyperius.”

Julius looked at her. “You think I have a bloodline?” He genuinely asked her.

“Yeah, there’s no other way you have that much mana to throw around,” Aubrey stubbornly said.

“Well, just for the record, I don’t have a bloodline.”

“Sure you don’t.”

“I don’t!”

“Okay.”

“I think I would know if I had a bloodline,” he insisted.

“Yeah, just like you should have known that removing skills from your skill slot was dangerous,” she pointed out.

Julius was silent for a moment. She did have a point on that end. And to be fair, she wasn’t exactly wrong either. Since he was reincarnated, he was pretty confident that he had a larger soul than most people his age. He also was only able to form his core that specific way because he had the mental maturity of an adult. Both would contribute to how much mana he had access to.

So while it wasn’t a “bloodline”, it was definitely an advantage that no one else had. It was technically more unfair than just a bloodline in his opinion. He didn’t bother arguing anymore, he didn’t feel right saying that he didn’t, because while true, didn’t paint the whole picture. Also, he didn’t have any plans to ever share anything about his reincarnation. That was one secret he was fine with taking to the grave with him.

They never really got back to the topic at hand. There were some questions he had wanted to ask them, but some of their questions turned more personal in nature, so he decided to drop them for now and change the subject. He could always ask tomorrow when they would be more… generous with their answers.

Aubrey still insisted that he had some sort of bloodline ability that he wasn’t telling them about. Though, even Derek and Kyle admitted that they thought the same thing. Only Edgar really believed him and Lily seemed unsure.

It wasn’t that they didn’t believe him, they just thought that he had one but didn’t know about it. Which was completely valid and a reasonable justification, he had proven that he wasn’t the most knowledgeable person in the world.

It was a shame though. Julius had wanted to ask them for any tips they might have for him regarding getting a skill to epic. But he could always wait for another day.

I am quite a patient person after all. The second he realized what was thinking about he backtracked immediately, stunned by his own misrepresentation. Okay, maybe not patient. But I can still wait for another day, he corrected himself.

Changing directions, he was thinking about going to his aura class. Even though he hadn’t gone to any other classes, he kind of wanted to go to that particular one. Professor Youma was a great professor and he always had something great to say.

He thought about it for a few minutes before deciding not to. Eh, I will go tomorrow. Julius promised himself.

Some of the others had asked if he wanted to come with them to the library, but he said no. For one reason, he didn’t know if he wanted to go to aura class or if he wanted to work on [Mana Slash]. But he also needed to take some time by himself.

Which was ironic, considering he had been locked up in a training room for the past couple of weeks. So if anything one would expect that he had enough alone time and would want to socialize a bit. But in reality, that time spent in the training room wasn’t proper alone time. His mind was in a complete haze the entire time. He had been so focused on working on his skills that his mind didn’t have the opportunity to decompress and relax.

He still needed to calm down and get settled. This was why for the moment he was walking down the path down to the beach while holding a dessert that resembled fried bread in his hand. It was very delicious, it was like a powdered donut and churro wrapped in one pastry. He made sure to grab extra at dinner and stored some in his spatial ring for later enjoyment.

It was dark out so the path was slightly ominous, thankfully he had [Spatial Perception] to sense the way down. However, it was still taking a long time. Julius peeked over the edge he was standing on and estimated that he was only a hundred feet away from the bottom.

With barely a hint of hesitation and a shrug, he launched himself right over the edge and was hurtling down to the ground. He siphoned as much kinetic energy from his fall as he could, slowing down his descent by a significant amount. He was still falling pretty hard though, so he sent a small burst of kinetic energy at the ground below his feet right as he was about to hit the ground, trying to offset the amount of force he was coming in with.

It didn’t really work as he was expecting and ended up just blowing himself off of his feet. Most importantly, he made sure to take every care to protect his pastry and wrapped it in many layers of mana. So although he was on his knees and chest sprawled across the sand, he was able to safely retrieve his dessert from where it had fallen out of his hands.

The layers of mana had done their job and ensured that the pastry was in perfect condition and that no sand got over its crusty and buttery exterior.

There was another amazing benefit of surrounding the pastry in layers of mana created primarily out of fire mana, it had warmed up the slowly cooling fried treat. It was like the perfect application to reheat fried food. It was kind of like an air fryer from his old world.

I wonder if there are any fire mages who become chefs? And how much does having fire-related skills help out?

As Julius was thinking about random little things, he found a little spot right off of the coastline and sat down in the sand. He noticed a small gathering of young people nearby. They had a fire going and were all having fun, he suspected they were all students of Goldencrest. He ignored them and kept to himself, pulling out another piece of tasty fried bread.

He also tried to create a soft blanket-like construct underneath him. But it didn’t turn out all that great. His usage of the more delicate aspects of mana manipulation could use some work. Although he had gotten much better in the few weeks he had been practicing.

Before, the blanket would have been just a hard sheet of mana that resembled a plate of steel rather than a soft blanket. Now at least, the blanket was kind of squishy in some places. It felt more similar to a crusty old blanket with a few soft sections, but there was clearly progress on his end.

He concentrated on smoothing out the wrinkles and hard pieces of the blanket as he enjoyed his treat. He calmly listened to the soft sounds of the water splashing into the shore and receding. It was very relaxing and peaceful.

So when he felt a group of students approach him from behind he wasn’t very very stoked. There were four of them. Two girls and two guys, all wearing a Goldencrest Academy uniform, and based on their single dash across their shoulders, they were also first-years. Which was slightly surprising, considering that he didn’t think that many first-years knew about this spot.

He didn’t turn around, he was still holding onto the hope that they were just heading in his direction out of coincidence and not because they wanted to talk to him. However, that hope died very quickly, because they walked up to him and one of the guys opened up his mouth and said. “Hey, I’ve seen you before.”