Path to Transcendence

Chapter 169: Questionable Methods

“So what now?” Julius asked after wiping the wetness from his face, purposefully ignoring Alice’s and Dante’s smirks.

“Now you should have some room for you to evolve your Fire Concept without your soul collapsing in on itself even with my assistance,” Alice told him.

“Yeah, you never explained that part. I was always a bit confused about that part of the plan.”

“I didn’t want you to be thinking too far ahead. I wanted you to focus on the present. You have the habit of jumping ahead,” Alice reminded him.

He gave an acknowledging smile. “And now?”

“Remember how Dante mentioned that your Fire Concept was a bit ‘lackluster’?”

“Of course, it was very rude of him,” he said while giving Dante a meaningful glance.

“But true,” Julius heard Dante mutter.

Alice gave both of them reproaching looks. “Anyway, he wasn’t necessarily wrong. Your Concept of Fire probably came from your superior skill. However, since your soul was already overloaded and worn down, you probably could not get the actual Concept you would have under ideal conditions.”

I would have gotten a different Concept? He asked himself.

“What do you mean?” He asked deliberately slow.

“You’re saying that you don’t have any ideas?” Alice asked him knowingly.

“A few,” he admitted.

“And…?”

He had honestly been thinking about it for a long time at this point. The idea was in the name of his skill [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] was a telling indicator. A Phoenix was a mythical bird representing life, fire, and rebirth.

The fact that his skill had the word Phoenix in its name had him hoping that the skill would be related to what a Phoenix represented. However, pseudo meant it was an incomplete version of a Phoenix. This made it seem like the evolved version was a completed Phoenix or something closer to the real deal.

Still, he didn’t want to get his hopes up too high. He would rather not be disappointed if he didn’t get the skill he was hoping to acquire at epic.

That being said, Alice was making it seem like the idea had some merit after all.

“A Phoenix Concept is a real thing?” He asked carefully.

“Oh, it sure is. Very rare and very desirable. I myself do not know anybody personally with that Concept. You on the other hand seem to have a fragmented Concept of Phoenix intertwined with your skill going off of the Fire Concept you acquired as well as the nature of the skill itself. This is also a big reason why it is a superior skill and so potent at its rank. Do you really think someone at Tier 2 should have such a powerful healing skill?” Alice smiled at him with a chuckle.

“If itʼs so rare, how do you know it’s not just a Fire Concept? Why are you so sure it is a Phoenix Concept?”

Dante grunted and got out of his chair. “You want me to tell you why a Phoenix Concept is so rare?” He asked Julius.

Julius looked up at the approaching old man and nodded eagerly at him.

Dante sat down in the seat next to him. “It is every healerʼs dream to gain a life-related Concept like a Phoenix Concept. You won’t find a single healer who wouldn’t be willing to trade both of their arms for a fragment. But it takes a special kind of person to gain a Phoenix Concept. One is that someone needs an appropriate fire and life affinity, which is rarer than you would think. Most fire users are fighters and most life users are healers, two very opposite paths.”

Dante itched his beard before continuing. “It’s not just an affinity thing either. An integral part of your soul must have a deep connection with life and death. Yet, a young Tier 2 like you already has such a connection. It is one of the first things I noticed about you. You are familiar with death and have a weirdly personal connection with it. I don’t know how and honestly, I don’t particularly care either. But you fit the mold. If anyone is going to have a Phoenix Concept I’m going to bet it’s the person who fulfills the requirements and has a bloody skill with Phoenix in the name.”

Julius refrained from reacting to Dante’s statement about his connection with death. He was scarily accurate about that. Instead, he scratched his head awkwardly.

Furthermore, when Dante put it like that, it was easy to see their point of view. Still, even if that was true, that leaves one very large question.

“How do I evolve my Fire Concept to a Phoenix Concept?”

“Beats me,” Dante shrugged unknowingly. “If it was up to me, I would just throw you in a fire and have you constantly heal yourself until you get it.”

Julius averted his eyes to the ground and tried not to remember that was exactly what he had done before to learn his Fire Concept.

Dante was close enough to Julius to realize something was off. The old man leaned closer and impolitely poked around his aura. Julius wasn’t able to fight off Dante’s aura no matter how hard he pushed back and the old man was able to get a sense of his emotions.

The authorʼs tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Dante leaned back and looked at Julius with a disgusted but also proud grin. “Seriously?”

He didn’t look up at the man but nodded his head, confirming it.

“You want to try it again?” Dante asked him.

“We’re not throwing him into a fire!” Alice cut Dante off.

“Why not? He already admitted that he’s done it. What’s the harm of doing it again?”

“You’re seriously asking me what the harm is with setting a young boy on fire?” Alice asked questioningly.

“You practically commanded the kid to torture himself for weeks. Don’t tell me you draw the line at this. The soul tempering was probably more painful than the fire was,” Dante argued.

“It was,” Julius instinctively commented before he could stop himself.

“We can try out some other way first,” she said after she gave a sharp look at Julius.

“Like what? Do you have any ideas or know many people who got a Phoenix Concept? I’m sure you can try to find a manual lying around somewhere,” Dante huffed out sarcastically.

Alice gave the older man a dark look, before turning around to look at Julius with assessing eyes. Seeing Alice’s face and no response, Dante raised both palms up at her. “Why don’t we ask the boy what he thinks.”

Alice continued to glare at Julius. “You really set yourself on fire before?”

He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Kind of, yeah.”

“Is that how you got your Fire Concept?”

He gave her a bright smile. “Yeah.” He was admittedly pretty proud of that. Probably more than he should be if he was being honest.

Alice pitched her nose. “I really need to have a conversation with whoever raised you. What kind of child thinks that setting themselves on fire is a smart way to get stronger?”

Julius didn’t know how to answer that. She did have a valid point, it wasn’t like he was a normal kid after all. He himself realized how alarming it was when the first thing he thought of was to light himself in a fiery blaze.

He gave her a casual shrug, which received a defeated sigh from Alice in return.

“Okay, let’s try the fire,” she said, sounding like it took all of her will to say those words. “But don’t push it too far. We don’t need you to get some sort of [Flaming Boy] skill yet. Your new skill should just about give you enough room to evolve your Concept and if you’re lucky evolve your healing skill to epic. If you get the wrong skill, you might end up being in a worse position than you were before, if that is even possible without dying before it happens.”

“Oh, so we are setting him on fire,” Dante mused.

“Yes, wasn’t that your idea in the first place?” Alice asked rhetorically.

“I mean it was. But it doesn’t mean I was actually going to go through with it.” Dante said.

“However, I do want to note for the record that you are the one who decided to set a little boy on fire,” Dante said with an innocent expression on his old face.

“Holy shit. I am completely surrounded by idiots,” Alice groaned.

“Hey! Drasil is not an idiot!” Julius argued emphatically. The little life spirit was on his shoulder and nodding his head at Julius’s statement. Alice had either not noticed or cared that the adorable green spirit had come out almost immediately after Julius got the [Soul Tempering] skill. The little guy must have felt the difference the skill made to his soul’s condition and came out to check on his patient like the good healer he was.

Julius passed the spirit a little orb of life mana to Drasil to suck on as thanks. To which the small saint cooed a thanks.

“I am not even going to argue with you,” Alice said exasperatedly. “Let’s get this over with. Hurry up and let’s set you ablaze before I kill all of you myself.”

Julius and Dante gave each other a secretive grin, knowing that they had successfully annoyed the other woman. They didn’t have much in common, but getting one over on Alice was something that both of them tried very hard to do.

However, before he followed Alice he had a question. He held up the suppression bracelet that was still around his wrist. “What should I do with this? Do I still need it?”

“No, you can do whatever you want with it. You can chuck for all I care,” Alice told him.

Dante made a disgruntled noise as he heard that. The man must have not appreciated his work being talked about like it was some common trash that was thrown away when it was no longer useful.

Julius on the other hand was smiling. He already had some ideas for the suppression device when for the future. It could act as a very nice training device for mana control and other skill training. Though he would make sure that he didn’t tell Lily that. He had a feeling that she wouldn’t like that idea as much as he did.

The three of them got settled in a spot where there wasn’t anything too flammable nearby. Not that there was much of a danger for a wildfire with two Tier 6s nearby. Still, it was a simple task to take some basic precautions.

“Are we just going to start right away?” He asked Alice.

“What did you do last time?” She asked.

Julius blushed a little bit and bit his lip, thinking about whether or not he wanted to share with them that he had been buck-naked the last time. However, considering he had already told both of them his skills, nudity seemed a little less personal.

He took a deep breath and looked at Alice and Dante with a shy grin. “I took off my clothes,” he stated.

Dante choked on his tongue and Aliceʼs eyes widened. She looked at him taken aback. “Say that again?” she asked.

“I got naked,” he repeated, this time with a bit more confidence and amusement.

“Oh.”

“Yep,” he said while looking at her expectantly.

“Well this is weird,” Dante commented. “I wasn’t expecting that issue.”

“I agree. I don’t know how I feel about this,” Alice stated uncertainly.

Julius looked at the two people who were both looking very conflicted. “Hold up. You both were okay with me setting myself on fire, but nudity is where you draw the line?”

“I don’t know about other people. But I don’t make the habit of looking at underaged boys while they are naked and on fire,” Alice pointed out.

“Does that mean you’re alright with looking at underaged naked boys if they aren’t on fire?” Dante teased.

Julius felt an immense pressure emit from Alice. The power wasn’t like anything he had ever seen. Just the pressure of the power made his entire body lock up instinctually. Alice wasn’t even using this power on him, it was being directed at the old man who made the joke.

Dante had a face that was creased with exertion. As he fought off something from Alice. Julius didn’t know what it was, but it must be powerful enough that a Tier 6 like Dante had a hard time dealing with it. Alice on the other hand was calmly glaring at Dante.

Finally, the old man seemed to have enough and tapped as a sign of submission. “Okay, okay!” He exclaimed. “I’m sorry.”

Alice pulled back her power with a satisfied grin and Julius was able to move again.

Was that her domain? Or was it some other power she hadn’t shown to me yet? Whatever it is, I want it, he told himself greedily, practically licking his lips at the thought of such a powerful technique.