Path to Transcendence

Chapter 293: His Heart Canʼt Take Anymore

The day of the prelims had arrived. Julius had been practicing with all of his friends during this time. However, his main focus was on gaining a space concept and improving his mana constructs.

He had tried to get some advice from Stella about how she was able to learn her Concept. According to her, she had gotten lucky when she had been caught in a spatial trap inside of a rift.

She also told him that he shouldn’t expect to learn one the same way. Her family had tried to replicate the incident but had not had any luck in gaining a Space Concept.

That left him with the boring task of meditating and trying to gain some insights from his [Spatial Perception] skill. He also did his best to remember how Stella used her aura to fold space when she had transported them to Heston. It was fleeting and difficult, but it might have helped him, so he still tried.

The others explained the general structure of the tournament. Each student would have five fights in the prelims. After these five fights, the second stage would consist of seeded battles, with those with a better record in the first stage fighting against those with a lower record.

These fights were further broken down into four different brackets, Brackets A through D.

At this point, each person would fight a single elimination match. At the end of the second stage, the top four from each bracket would advance to the finals.

This seemed pretty fair to him. It rewarded those who did well in the first stage and did a good job of preventing all of the top seeds from eliminating each other during the second stage.

This meant that there were sixteen in total for the finals, and this was where the tournament got serious. Whoever was still standing after that would be crowned the winner.

However, just getting to the finals was a big deal because if you did, you would gain one of Goldencrest’s slots to the Inter-School Tournament no matter how well you did at the Intras.

While some of the rewards for the Goldencrest Tournament were supposedly nice, he was much more interested in the rewards for the Inter-School Tournament. He decided that he would be happy just to get a slot for the Inter-School Tournament.

His first match was also today. He didn’t know who he would be facing quite yet, but it would likely be a third or fourth year. He didn’t know of any other first or second-years who would be participating in the Tier 3 tournament.

Even Reinera, though she was Tier 3 now, wasn’t going to join. Apparently, that was another one of her familyʼs requirements for her to stay at Goldencrest.

Not that the girl needed it. Her family could likely get her whatever she required unless it were truly special or something specific like a Challenge Rift.

“Do you feel ready?” Lily asked him as they headed their way over to the venue.

“Yeah, just a bit overwhelmed,” he said to her before glancing over at the massive crowd of students heading toward the arena.

“You’re going to be fine. For people like you, these prelims are more of a warm-up. The real fights usually begin during the final round or at the end of the second stage when people are fighting for those last few spots.”

He nodded his head at her and continued to look at the rest of the students, who were all heading over to check who they would be fighting.

“Are you sure you don’t want to participate? It feels weird after you basically forced me to,” he said to her with a sigh.

He had learned that she wasn’t going to participate, so she had chosen to stay with him and guide him.

Although most of the upperclassmen were ‘pressured’ into at least giving the tournament a shot, Lily was an exception, and she had decided not to sign up.

He understood where she was coming from, too. Since the school used simulated combat bracelets, the unfortunate side effect was that it did not protect the student from certain mind magics that Lily was great at.

It was similar to how it didn’t let his healing skill work because he wasn’t technically taking any damage.

She could put a person’s mind in a blender if she wanted to. However, the braceletʼs protection enchantments had a tough time dictating when to intervene in mental attacks.

This also meant that she was forbidden from using any of her more… dangerous abilities during the fights. This is what happened last year, and it is why she was forced to concede many matches and not placed as well.

Everyone in their friend group and even many other students knew that Lily was one of the scariest people in the school; it was just that she couldn’t actually show off her skills in a tournament-style environment.

“I did it last year, and it honestly felt really constricting. I wasn’t able to use any of my actual skills. I was hoping that they would find a way to modify the bracelets this year, but to no avail,” she said sadly.

When they entered the facility, many things had already been set up: large banners displaying Goldencrest’s symbol and an even larger number of staff running around.

He followed Lily over to a booth where a bunch of students were in line. He and Lily stood behind these people and waited for their turn.

A number of students recognized Lily and whispered to each other when they didn’t think she was paying attention. A few also recognized Julius, but it didn’t seem like they particularly cared about him like they did for her.

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When it was finally their turn, a man beckoned them forward.

“Name?” The staff member asked Lily disinterestingly.

“Oh no, we are here for him,” Lily said while patting Julius’s back.

“Hm? Is that so?” The man looked up and examined Julius. “And what’s your name?”

“Julius Snow,” he said to the man who was already scanning his eyes down a list of paper.

“Oh, here you are,” the man said before pinching his brows together in confusion and looking at Julius. “You’re a first-year?”

“Hmhm.”

The man gave Julius and Lily another weird look before shrugging his shoulders. ” Your first fight will be Arena 3, Zone 5,” the man said to Julius while handing him a card. “Your fight will occur in about an hour at noon, and you will have to use this to enter your designated zone. It will be recorded as an official loss if you don’t show up before the match begins.”

“Does it say who I will be fighting?” He asked.

“It looks like you will be fighting some third-year named Feras,” the man informed him with a shrug.

“Thank you,” Julius said to him before turning away and leaving. However, he heard the man call out to him before he could get too far away.

“Good luck, kid.”

He smiled gratefully and gave the man a thumbs in return.

***

Since neither Julius nor Lily had anything to do, they decided to head over even though they had about an hour before his fight started.

He found Arena 3 pretty easily since everything was labeled and had huge signs.

When he looked around, he saw that there were many fights already getting started. Arena 3 was basically a large gymnasium with stands surrounding a gigantic open field, each with over a dozen zones separated from each other and slightly opaque walls of light blue mana.

He and Lily chose to sit down in the relatively empty stands. Some people were watching the fights, but he suspected that most of them were here watching and supporting their friends.

When they sat down, just like during their wait in line, some people noticed them and kept glancing their way. He found it annoying, especially since his skills kept on alerting him about their gazes. He even contemplated turning off his skills so that he could get some peace, but in the end, he realized he was just being silly.

Getting nice and comfy, he leaned back and scanned all of the fights with a curious eye. After a moment of looking around, his attention was brought to a fight just off in the corner of the arena. It was between two girls, and they were ferociously slinging spell after spell at each other.

The power from their spells could not be hidden by the barrier surrounding their zone.

He wasn’t the only person watching their fight, either. He spotted a good number of the other students all paying attention to these girls, and he didn’t blame them for doing so. It was quite a flashy fight.

One girl was a typical fire mage who used large swaths of fire to drown her opponent. The other girl was much more defensive and used some barrier skills to deflect each wave of fire.

She would occasionally throw out a thin plate of mana at the fire girl, forcing the other girl to focus on her own defenses.

The barriers the girl used looked like they were created with mana, but to his senses, they felt like slabs of steel. There was something about how she created them that caught his attention. They weren’t just the usual barriers of mana he often saw from other mages.

She must have had a Concept that she infused into each one of them, it was possible that there were even two of them present. The shape of them would change slightly too. If the girl wanted some to cut, she would send out a thin barrier covered with mana over the edge. And if she wanted something with a big more force, she would create a thick slab that would smash into the other girls defenses.

Whatever these barriers were, they were dangerous, and he didn’t doubt that being hit by one would hurt a lot.

Another thing that impressed him was just how nimble the girls were. Although they were mages and not known for their physical prowess, both of them were surprisingly quick.

The fire mage girl was always on the move, trying to flank the other girl and smother her with fire magic.

He continued to watch the fight, nodding his head as he did, impressed at the level of skill they each showed. While he watched, he took out some snacks and started to munch on them.

However, he felt Lily give him a gentle jab, and he wordlessly passed half of his snacks to her.

“What do you think of those two?” He asked with a mouthful of food.

“Who?” Lily asked curiously.

He pointed over to where the two girls were fighting. “Them.”

“Oh, the girl who is using fire magic is Alia, and the other girl using barrier magic is Quinn. They are both pretty good fourth-years, especially Quinn. They both have a decently good chance of advancing to the top 16, depending on what kind of skills they have been hiding away. It’s just a shame that they had to fight each other so early on,” she explained to him before throwing some snacks into her mouth.

In the end, the girl Quinn finally came out on top after exhausting the other girl’s mana without taking a single blow.

He would make sure to keep an eye on the girl. Her defensive magic was quite impressive. But even more remarkable was her ability to manipulate each barrier so that she was always protecting herself with minimal resources. He could probably learn a few things from the way she used her barriers.

Eventually, his time had come. So he sat up and brushed off the crumbs from his clothes.

“Wish me luck,” he said to Lily, who just scoffed at him.

“Just don’t do anything stupid, alright?” She said to him with a knowing grin.

“What do you mean? I never do anything stupid,” he lied shamelessly.

All he got was a soft mental prod from her, and she shooed him away to get going.

He laughed and started to walk down the stands to the arena.

“Wait,” he heard her call out to him.

He turned around and gave her a confused look. “What’s up?”

She leaned forward and stretched out her hand to him.

Grinning at her, he reached over and gave it a loud high five. But he found himself being even more confused when she gave him a disappointed look.

“What?”

Finally, he noticed that her eyes were firmly placed on the half-eaten bag of snacks in his other hand and realized that she had already finished her own snacks.

“Really?” He asked with a deadpan expression.

She didn’t say anything but waved her upturned fingers at him with an expectant expression on her face.

Sighing loudly, he handed over his remaining snack.

“I feel like everyone only cares about me for my food,” he said dramatically.

He dutifully ignored the agreeing nod from Lily, he didn’t know if his heart could take anymore, and went on his way to his match with downtrodden shoulders.