Path to Transcendence

Chapter 753: That Was Embarassing

Julius found himself sitting in Ezra’s home sipping on some nice warm tea alongside Kaito, Lora, Marcus, Daren, and Ezra. It was surprisingly cozy and welcoming. Everything was decorated thoughtfully, and the couches were some of the most comfortable pieces of furniture he’d ever sat on. It was like he was sitting on actual clouds.

That wasn’t to say the house wasn’t fancy. It was clear that the Flowing Cloud Pavilion treated their core disciples well. Julius hadn’t seen where Maya had lived, but he didn’t know if it was as nice as this.

From what he could tell, the Flowing Cloud Pavilion was essentially a flying fortress high up in the sky. Or they were inside a special realm. Still, he couldnʼt be sure, and he supposed that was the point of it.

While they drank their tea, Kaito explained what had happened while they were out in the Howling Skylands. It was safe to say that neither Ezra nor Daren were very happy about what happened.

“You should have killed him,” Daren said with a growl, talking about Haruto.

“We need to learn who’s been helping him and why,” Kaito explained.

“Didn’t you say that Celestine and this so-called Conclave were the ones backing him?” Ezra asked.

“Yes, but we don’t know if they are the only ones involved, nor what they want with Clan Yoshu.”

“Wait, so if I am understanding this correctly, you two managed to-,” Daren pointed at Kaito and Marcus. “-to take down six Tier 5s on your own? I know youʼre strong, father, but that seems a bit crazy even for you,” Daren said with a frown.

“Technically three of us,” Marcus added, taking a sip of his tea.

Daren looked over at Marcus with a complicated look on his face. He hadn’t really asked much, but it was clear that he was confused about the one-armed man’s presence and, more importantly, why he decided to help his family.

Kaito laid his hand on Daren’s arm. “Marcus here is one of the Empire’s most elite fighters. With his help, along with Julius, we were able to handle the ambush without any issue.”

Daren glanced at Julius, his nose tilted upward with evident skepticism. “I don’t mean to offend, but you did say that there were six Tier 5s there, right?”

Kaito nodded. “Right.”

“And he was able to ‘help’ you?”

“That is correct,” Kaito said simply.

Daren scrunched his nose and examined Julius with narrowed eyes. “He’s only a Tier 4. How was he able to hold his own against vastly superior opponents?”

“Don’t mind him, Julius. He’s just a bit frustrated that he wasn’t able to do more to help,” Ezra softly said to him.

“So are you! You already said so yourself,” Daren said with a shout.

“Yes, but I also wasn’t so rude as to insult the person who helped out our family and who was the one who helped cure our sister of her condition,” Ezra said with a pointed stare at Daren.

“Wait, that was you?” Daren asked Julius with wide eyes.

Julius shrugged. “It was mostly Aurelia and Lora’s own doing, but I helped her establish the contract between them.”

“If you have any doubts about his contribution, why don’t you fight him yourself?” Kaito suddenly stated.

“What? No, I’m not doubting his contribution,” Daren quickly backpedaled and bowed to Julius. “I didn’t mean to offend. I’ve been told that my mouth opens before my mind can stop it.”

Julius shook his hand. “No worries, no offense taken.”

“You should still fight him,” Kaito said to his son with a little more firmness in his tone.

“What? Why?”

“Well, I’ve also heard you’ve been getting quite an inflated ego lately, especially ever since you were promoted to an inner disciple. I even heard that you got into some trouble recently with another disciple.”

“Who told you that?” Daren asked with a slightly worried expression. But he realized that there was only one person who could have told his father, and he turned to the culprit. “Why would you tell him about that?”

Ezra blinked unflinchingly. “He asked for a report, and so I told him the most important bits.”

“You could have avoided telling him about that,” Daren pointed out.

“And you could have handled the situation with a lot more grace and maturity.”

“That arrogant pissant deserved what came to him.”

“Perhaps, but itʼs the way you dealt with the whole situation that created issues. It could have been done in private, but instead you decided to flip out in front of half of the sect and several elders.”

“Okay, fair. But what does this have to do with why father wants me to fight this kid?”

“Why are you so against it? You loved fighting. Do you think you can’t beat a kid several years your junior?”

Daren’s eye twitched ever so slightly. Then he looked over at Julius with an apologetic shrug. “I don’t want to come off as arrogant, but I am already quite highly ranked within the inner sect. The ones ahead of me are only there because they are older. I doubt there are many people my age who could beat me.”

Kaito looked over at Julius with a shrug. “See what I mean? Honestly, it would be a tremendous favor to me if you fought him really quick. It would be an enlightening experience for him.”

Julius sighed. “Just a friendly spar?”

“Yeah.”

“You are really underestimating me, aren’t you, Father? You haven’t seen how much I’ve improved since I last saw you,” Daren said with a frown.

“Then show me,” Kaito said, staring as if challenging him.

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Darenʼs face twisted. “Fine. Can we use your training grounds, Ezra?”

“Sure, I don’t mind.”

“Good,” Daren said and got up, reaching over to gently pat Julius on the shoulder. “Come on, letʼs spar a little bit. I promise I’ll go easy on you.”

Julius shrugged his shoulders and followed behind Daren. He could see what Kaito wanted him to do. Daren seemed like a nice guy, and he obviously cared a lot for Lora, but there was a noticeable arrogant feeling radiating from the guyʼs aura. Julius knew what Kaito wanted him to do.

He noticed that Lora was getting up too. And considering she had a smirk on her face as she followed them out of the house, he suspected she knew what her father wanted as well.

***

Daren POV

He suspected something was off. His brother must have suspected something as well. He was looking over at Julius with more curiosity and interest than he did with practically anyone. Ezra wasn’t one to waste time on people he didn’t deem important to him, rather spending his time with his sword or flying around.

But his sister’s excitement was the biggest hint. She didn’t get excited about him fighting often, and so when he felt her aura pulsing with eagerness, he couldn’t help but feel wary.

However, he shoved those feelings aside. He wanted to show his father that he’d gotten stronger. It wasn’t like his father wasn’t supportive of his feats or of what he did, but getting praise from him was more difficult than squeezing water from a stone. Even Ezra, their family’s most talented person, rarely got any praise from their father.

Perhaps Lora got the most, but that made sense; she was the favorite. It wasn’t even close. Though it wasn’t as if Daren was jealous of her, Lora was everyoneʼs favorite. They just wanted the best for her. And seeing her actually healthy for the first time in a long time gave Daren more pleasure than he could describe.

On the bright side, Lora’s healthier state should mean she can access and use her bloodline properly now. That might make her more talented than Ezra now. Something he was sure Ezra was aware of. Not that Ezra would be jealous; heʼd likely spend a lot of time training Lora himself.

That said, Daren accepted the fight for his father. He wanted to demonstrate how hard he worked over these past couple of years. And this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

He stood across from Julius, the young man who had supposedly helped his sister with her condition, with a complicated expression on his face. Julius didn’t look very old. The fact that he was already a Tier 4 at his age indicated he was somewhat talented. That, or House Violet had fed him a number of treasures to push him to Tier 4. Either way, it was clear that his father thought highly of the young man.

That being said, Daren was still going to win. He wasn’t about to let someone who had barely touched Tier 4 beat him in a spar. Not if he could help it.

“Are you ready?” he asked Julius.

The black-haired teen nodded firmly. Daren did take note of how composed Julius was. His aura and mana weren’t fluctuating in the slightest. They were completely still.

However, Daren didn’t let this deter him, and with a blast of mana surging through his legs, he dashed toward Julius. His wooden training spear was kept low until the very last moment. It was only when Julius was finally within reach that he thrust out.

Daren was a little surprised when the boy moved like a ghost and avoided the spear with a casual sidestep. One of Daren’s strengths was his speed, so seeing his first thrust being avoided easily was already alarming.

However, that wasn’t anywhere close to his top speed, and with a bit of light mana running through his spear and body, he increased his speed. He might not have the bloodline like Lora, but he had impeccable control over his wind and light mana affinities.

He snapped out another thrust; this time it was slapped to the side by Julius’s forearm, which was surrounded by white and slightly dark blue mana. Surprisingly, Julius hadn’t chosen a weapon. Rather, he decided to use his bare hands. Though it didn’t seem like he needed it, that small slap sent stinging reverberations through his arms.

Daren frowned and continued to press forward. He used his longer reach to poke and prod various angles. He also began to weave more and more skills over time. His spear was illuminated, superimposing several images of a spear around him as he accelerated his assault.

One thing was clear, though: Julius was pretty well trained. He moved very smoothly and seemed to see through all of Daren’s tricks. Even when he shrouded his spear with illusion magic, Julius wasn’t fooled. He somehow discerned which spear strike was the real one and didn’t even bother to deal with the fake illusions.

Julius was clearly at the level of an inner disciple.

The bursts of wind magic he used to destabilize his footing didn’t work either. It was either neatly avoided, or a pulse of aura wiped out the technique before it could affect the younger teen.

This wasn’t any regular aura either. There was a very destructive and oppressive element to it. His own aura was almost flinching back with each moment of contact. He tried to go up against this aura directly to fight for control, but he quickly learned that wasn’t a smart thing to do. Whatever this aura was, it excelled at drilling through opposing auras.

During these few minutes of sparring, Daren was able to ascertain several things about Julius. For one, the teen’s reaction speed and perception were top-notch. For someone with Daren’s style of combat, this was quite annoying. It meant he couldn’t rely on his superior speed and deception to gain an advantage.

However, there were other things he had to worry about. That aura was certainly one of them. He’d never experienced anything quite like it, and he could feel it slowly starting to corrode his own mana attached to his spear.

However, it was Julius’s physical abilities that really astonished Daren. There were plenty of inner disciples within the Flowing Cloud Pavilion who focused on a path of body reinforcement, but few, if any, were at Juliusʼs level.

He moved so quickly, and so suddenly, there was no way he didn’t have some kind of powerful skill that allowed him to do so. Then there was his raw strength…

Each time he was parried by those bare hands, his body was receiving an uncomfortable, reverberating sensation. As if a good portion of the force was being redirected back at him. Not to mention how freaking heavy Julius’s body was. He didn’t look like it, and he didn’t have the massive frame or the features one associated with a heavily focused physical fighter, but it was like the teen was made of pure steel.

Daren was starting to realize why his father thought so highly of Julius.

And the worst part? Julius was holding back.

Judging by the calm, unbothered expression, it was by quite a lot, too. This annoyed Daren more than he cared to admit. He didn’t care if he lost, but he didn’t want to be treated with pity. If he was going to lose, he wanted to lose with some dignity.

He stepped back and scowled at Julius.

“Stop holding back. It’s insulting to both you and me,” he said with a slightly breathless grunt.

Julius cocked his head and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Stop it. I understand why father wanted me to fight you. But don’t sit there and play with me. Show me what you got.”

Julius pressed his lips together in concern. “You sure?”

Daren didn’t even bother to say anything back. Instead, he started to infuse his spear and body with as much mana as he could. He added the fledgling bits of spear intent he managed to grasp as well. He had only just touched on it and hadn’t been planning to use it at the beginning, but it was quite obvious he didn’t have a chance without it.

His spear and body radiated with subtle traces of green light, as the mana seeped out of his pores. His aura exuded a deep surge of his Concepts of Spear, Wind, Piercing, and Sharpness.

Julius finally seemed to take him seriously too. For the first time, Daren felt the other boy start to gather large amounts of mana. To be honest, it scared Daren. It was like all of the mana was being sucked out of the air and swirling around Julius’s body. Intense flashes of heat, force, and aura pulsed out.

He attacked before his fear could start to build. He blitzed forward, spear in hand. He left afterimages of his form scattered across the training grounds; fierce gusts of wind blew from all angles. And it all came to a head when he thrust his spear.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. He felt that same aura reach out and envelop his body with its relentless pressure. He could barely hold his techniques together. Only his Authority enabled him to keep it all under his control. But then Julius moved.

Daren wasn’t even able to track his movement. It was that fast. He only felt his training spear being shattered into a thousand pieces and was sent flying head over heels into the side of the barrier, his chest a smoldering mess with the imprint of a fist on his clothing.

He let out a groan and let his head fall back onto the ground.

Well, that was embarrassing, he thought to himself with a wince.

He had lost quite emphatically. What was even more embarrassing was that he could tell that Julius had still held back.