Path to Transcendence

Chapter 128: Cake Solicitation

Julius reread the message a couple of times before he stopped. He just had to make sure that he was reading it correctly. Apparently, he now had eleven skill slots instead of the normal ten, which he was very excited about.

He had always suspected that there were ways to increase one’s skill slots. He remembered that he had asked Edwin a while ago, and of course, in typical Edwin fashion, he hadn’t answered Julius’s question.

Julius distinctly recalled that the only answer Julius got was a smack across the back of the head and a stern reminder to not be focused on things that didn’t matter.

However, It made sense considering that skills were an integral piece of one’s soul. Still, he hadn’t been expecting to get another one until Tier 3 at least. After all, Tier 3 was the stage when soul strength became more important. But it was also the stage when one’s body and soul started to merge.

Julius pulled up his status to see if anything would be reflected in these changes.

Name: Julius Von Hyperius

Tier: 2

Skills:

[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 1] (Epic)[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 15] (Rare+)[Empowerment of Will lvl 14] (Rare+)[Barrier of Severance lvl 9] (Rare+)[Spatial Perception lvl 19] (Rare)[Savage Dance lvl 19] (Rare)[Kinetic Augmentation lvl 16] (Rare)
Current Skill Slots: 7/11

Concepts:

[Concept of Sharpness][Severing Will]
The first thing he noticed was his new epic skill right on top of his skill list. He was going to be honest, seeing it up there gave him more satisfaction than he had been expecting.

The next thing he noticed was that there were some additions to his status. It now had how many skill slots he had in total as well as the amount that he was currently using. At the moment it showed that he was using seven out of eleven slots. That meant he had four more to fill in with whatever skills he wanted.

Even without the additional skill slot, being able to combine three separate skills into one singular one had been a huge help. With the extra room and the two extra skill slots to play with, Julius felt less bad about taking another skill.

He could now get that [Quick Step] skill that he had been looking at for a while. Gabriel had been waiting to teach him until he was ready. However, now that Julius had more space for skills, he felt prepared.

The final thing that stuck out was the section that showed Julius his Concepts he currently had. At the moment, it only displayed his Concept of Sharpness: Severing Will. He would imagine that in the future it would show the rest of his Concepts. Also, if he were to get another Concept of Sharpness, it seemed logical that it would show up underneath Severing Will.

However, that begged the question of the possibility and possible repercussions of learning a second Concept of Sharpness.

He was very intrigued about what it would mean for his current Concept. Perhaps, it might even combine with Severing Will if there were property synergy between them. He would try to remember to ask Declan or someone else about it. It would be good to know.

After a big stretch of his arms, he got back to what he was doing before he was interrupted. His partly eaten cake was still in his lap as he lay down in his chair.

However, now that he was done with the skill upgrade and the spontaneous reward selection, he didn’t feel like staying in the training room for much longer. He was thinking that some fresh air would be a nice change of pace.

As he left the training facilities, he immediately noticed how nice of a night it was. The moon was illuminating the campus just enough to see the general silhouettes of the buildings and trees. The air was crisp and refreshing. Maybe it would have been cold to someone who was untiered, but to Julius, it was the perfect temperature.

Julius walked around campus, looking for a spot where he could enjoy his cake. He came across a good number of students much to his surprise. It was pretty late, but it must not have been late enough for everyone to be in bed. There was also the fact that tomorrow was the weekend, so students didn’t need to get up early in the morning. It was one of the few days they got a chance to sleep in.

Julius thought about heading down to the beach, but he stopped himself. For one, if there were enough people around campus, he was sure that there was a party or get-together of some sort down at the beach like usual.

Secondly, he didn’t enjoy the thought of eating his cake while around the sand. Nothing would ruin such a delicacy faster than it becoming a gritty mess.

Therefore, he headed off in search of an empty garden or area where he could enjoy his cake in peace. He finally found a spot toward the edge of campus, it was much quieter than the rest of the grounds. He could only sense a couple of people around him. Though, they were far enough away that he didn’t worry about it.

He got himself nice and situated, creating another chair using his new skill, [Armaments of the Arcane]. This time he also included a table for him to eat off of as well. It was completely unnecessary but it was a perfect opportunity to try out his new skill.

The one thing that he really noticed, was how much of his Concept was present in the skill’s constructs without him really needing to do anything. It didn’t make the chair or table sharp, but they were infused with his Severing Will Concept.

Once he got settled in, he brought out his cake and glass of milk. However, he felt something tug on his core and Drasil came out on his own as well. The little life spirit appeared to want to enjoy the night with Julius as well.

Unfortunately, the cute little green spirit had no interest in delicious desserts. Hence, Julius had to create a little ball of dense life mana for the spirit to enjoy alongside him. He even created a little plate for the spirit to eat on, just like Julius was.

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Drasil seemed to really enjoy the thought and happily whistled at Julius while leaping at the ball of life mana, eagerly absorbing it. Julius smiled at the little guy and went back to shoveling his own cake into his mouth.

He was on his third piece of cake when he felt two individuals approach his general direction. He could tell that they were both female based on their general shapes. One was practicing with her mana while walking the other was following her from behind.

Once he checked them out, he ignored them and went back to devouring his cake. He looked over at Drasil who was almost done with his little ball and created another one, placing in on the plate in front of him.

Drasil looked up at Julius and gave a whistle of appreciation, before continuing to enjoy the life mana.

He felt the girls get pretty close to him, heading almost directly to where he was sitting.

Please don’t come over, please don’t come over, Julius prayed silently.

“Is that cake?” he heard from behind his back. She sounded incredulous as if the idea of someone eating cake was absurd. Or maybe it was more of the fact that he was eating cake with a small green spirit in the dark that surprised her.

He turned around to see who had disturbed his night. It was hard to see her exact features, but she had black hair and was cute even in this low lighting. She wasn’t stunning like he had seen many of the girls in his year, but she had a nice face and a warm smile. He turned to look at the other girl he had sensed walking with her, but to his surprise, he didn’t see anything.

He blinked a few times before taking another look, but it was the same. There was nobody there.

Correction. There was someone there, he just couldn’t see them with his eyes. However, [Spatial Perception] was quite confident that she was there. It was possible that she using magic to make herself invisible or something.

It wasn’t his problem either way. As long as she wasn’t doing it for malicious purposes, he would overlook it and pretend that he didn’t know she was there. Who knew, maybe the girl was doing training of her own right now. Who was Julius to judge other people’s training methods? He had to remind himself that he had worn a blindfold for several years as a child for that very same reason.

Julius looked back at the girl who had asked him the question. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I asked if that was a cake you were eating,” she said with an amused glint in her eyes.

Julius nodded his head proudly. “Yep. Chocolate espresso cake from a little shop I found in town.”

She tilted her head and gave him a curious look in return. “Why are you eating cake all the way out here alone?”

“I’m not alone,” he pointed out. He had seen her already take notice of Drasil, it was too late to hide him and he didn’t feel like it was worth the trouble. Most people surprisingly didn’t pay that much attention to other’s familiars, they were more common than Julius expected.

Plus, Drasil was having a grand old time and he didn’t want to ruin his fun. In fact, Drasil hadn’t even noticed the girlsʼ approach and was still enjoying his meal with joyful ignorance.

She took another glance at the gluttonous life spirit with a small laugh. “Apologies, not alone. But my question still stands.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? Everyone loves cake. Plus, it’s a beautiful night out and it is quite peaceful don’t you think?”

The girl gave a rueful grin and a conceding nod. “Very true.”

Julius observed the girl intently looking at the half-eaten piece that was on his plate. He had an inclining that she had come over more than just to say hello. In fact, based on how she was staring at his cake so attentively he had a good guess why.

“Do you want a piece?” Julius offered her in a regretful tone as if he was wishing that she would decline.

Julius saw her give the brightest smile yet and furiously nodded her head in confirmation.

He gave her a small knowing grin and she had the grace to look slightly embarrassed at how obvious and shameless her staring had been. He took out the rest of the cake and gave her a nice generous slice along with a plate of her own and a glass of milk.

She took it with a happy grin, “Thanks, I love cake.”

“I couldn’t tell,” he said with a grin of his own.

She sat down beside him on the ground as she took her first bite. Julius knew that he should be offering his chair to her like a good gentleman would. However, he rationalized to himself that he had already given away a precious piece of his cake.

Not to mention he had been out here to avoid people. So it made him feel less bad about not giving up his seat.

While he could have created another chair, he didn’t want to show his new epic-ranked skill to them in action. He would rather they believed it was some sort of enchanted item he had.

However, it seemed that the invisible girl who was with her didn’t feel the same way. Julius could literally feel the girl staring daggers into his forehead. He didn’t need eyes to feel her judgemental gaze.

He got distracted when he heard a soft moan of appreciation from the girl who savored her first bite.

“This is a very good cake,” she commented.

“Right? Not bad at all,” Julius agreed enthusiastically.

Unlike her friend, the girl didn’t seem to mind that Julius wasn’t giving up his seat. If anything, she was too distracted with her own dessert to care that much.

They didn’t talk at all, both of them were content with the silence and their cake. Once she polished off the cake in record time, she took a nice long sip of the milk, before getting to her feet and sweeping the crumbs from her uniform.

“That was fast,” he commented while also a little bit impressed.

He could see her turn her head down and blush in embarrassment in the low light again. “Sorry about that. I interrupted you, took your cake, then gorged myself on it in front of you like some uncultured barbarian.”

“No, no. Don’t be embarrassed, I was more in awe about how fast you ate it.”

She still had her head down. “Well, it’s not my fault that is was it so delicious,” she said bitterly.

“...Thank you for sharing with me. I know you didn’t have to,” she thanked him after a momentary pause.

“Are you kidding me? The way you were looking at it, I had a feeling that if I didn’t you would have beaten me up and taken it from me by force.”

She looked back up at him with an affronted expression. “I would not!” She refuted fervently.

“I would most likely just have asked you repeatedly until you said yes,” she confessed after a brief second of silence.

Julius noticed the invisible girl next to her tap her shoulder once. Then, without looking at the invisible girl, the cake girl bowed at Julius. “I have to get going, but I appreciate you sharing your cake with me. If I ever come across a cake in need of sharing, I will try to return the favor,” she joked.

“Only if itʼs a good one. If it tastes like dirt, you have my permission to forget about me,” Julius said. He was dead serious too. He loved cake, but that didn’t mean he wanted a shit cake.

“Okay, only the best cake, I promise,” she said with a hint of amusement before turning around and leaving in the other direction without another word.

Julius still felt the other invisible girlʼs gaze intensely staring at him even as she left alongside her friend.

What a weird pair of girls, Julius mused to himself. They just came in and ate my cake. Not to mention that I didn’t even get any of their names.