Path to Transcendence

Lucien POV

Lucien continued staring at the door, the boy and his friends had just left. He didn't particularly know how he felt about the situation and how everything went down.

A part of him had wanted to snap at the boy for daring to speak with such arrogance and disregard for their own reputation. However, he was reminded of Gabriel's earlier words moments before the boy had come in for questioning.

He turned to the man in question who was still relaxing in his chair.

"Are you sure this was the proper way we should have handled that?" He asked the Applied Combat Professor.

"Absolutely, I have spent a good amount of time with the boy and I know better than anyone how stubborn he can be," Gabriel said with a light chuckle.

"Stubborn or not, we could have gotten way more information out of him if we just pressed harder. I don't care if we offend the boy or the other children's families. This is Goldencrest, their families will not be able to act with impunity here. This is not like the regular world," Kelsa argued angrily.

"This was the better way Kelsa and you should be grateful that your attitude didn't make it any worse. I don't think any of us want to get in a fight with Marcus Avery or Stella Quincy," Gabriel replied to her with an amused shake of his head.

"But we barely learned anything! We are still just as stuck as we were a day ago. That might have been one of our best chances in the past few months to find anything worthwhile. We can only hope that the princess will be forthcoming with her information, but I somehow doubt that," Kelsa exclaimed.

Lucien sighed because his experience told him that he agreed with Kelsa. It didn't really matter if they stepped on the toes of House Violet or even House Zenith. The fact remained that this was Goldencrest, a place where politics had little standing. However, he also trusted Gabriel's opinion, which was why he allowed it to happen like this.

"I gotta say, Gabriel, I agree with Kelsa here. I don't like how little information we got about the incident from someone who was involved. The boy barely answered any meaningful questions that we didn't already know beforehand," he said to Gabriel while rubbing his head stressfully.

"I doubt the boy knows who did it either. If he did, I would bet that he would tell his friends, and they would have told their families if anything was dangerous to Goldencrest. Don't forget that they also attend here," Gabriel pointed out.

That was a good point. No matter how much he didn't like how ruthless the young Violet had acted during questioning, he didn't think she was the type of person to learn about a threat and ignore it, especially one that existed under her nose at the school she attended. Her House was one of the truly good ones.

"I still believe that this was a mistake," Kelsa said firmly.

Gabriel scooted back his chair and stood up aggressively before pacing around the room while scratching his bald head.

"I don't think you quite understand my reasoning here, Kelsa. I am not worried about House Violet or House Zenith, or frankly, any of his friends' families coming down on us. I am much more concerned about what the boy himself will do in the future if we piss him off now. He has a specific personality and those who treat him with respect get it in return. Those who don't… well, let's just say we don't want to go down that route. A good example would be Sonia."

Kelsa scoffed. "What are you talking about, Gabriel? He's just a child. While admittedly a child at Tier 3, it is likely that the boy advanced much too quickly. According to his records, he had only recently advanced before the incident happened. I would daresay that the boy has created quite the crack in his foundations, one that he will be struggling to fix if he wants to advance to Tier 4."

Lucien internally agreed with her assessment. While it wasn't impossible to advance in a matter of several months, it was very rare. The boy would have needed to level up many of his skills to rare at the very least if he wanted a solid foundation. Lucien also checked the boy's aura during the meeting. While it was well controlled, there was a lack of weight that most geniuses or powerful people had.

Gabriel actually stopped pacing and laughed loudly as if what he heard was hilarious, making the two of them pause in confusion. Gabriel directed a very serious gaze at her. "Don't be fooled by him, Kelsa. That boy is by far the strongest person in his year, I would even say that when he was in Tier 2, he would have been able to beat a good number of the upperclassmen."

Kelsa scoffed loudly. "Come on, Gabriel! I know you like the boy, but that is ridiculous. He has a couple of high affinities at best, and no matter how much skill he has, crossing the gap between tiers is very hard no matter the tier." Kelsa dismissed the man's words easily.

Gabriel shook his head at the woman, appearing to give up on trying to convince her. However, unlike Kelsa, Lucien didn't take Gabriel's words as a grain of salt.

"Are you saying you believe that boy is going to be a Tier 5 or Tier 6 in the future? You felt his aura, there is a high chance that he has ruined his foundation with his advancement."

"I doubt that," Gabriel said confidently. "I told you, he is better than a lot of the upperclassmen. He also has quite a hunger for power. So I don't think he would advance without being sure of it."

"People do dumb stuff to survive Gabriel," Lucien reminded the man.

"Some people also do dumb stuff for power," Gabriel shot back, which gave him pause.

Ain't that the truth, he thought to himself, recalling his own mistakes from his youth.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Are you saying that he threw himself into danger, without regard to his safety?"

"That is exactly what I am saying. The boy isn't the most rational person, but he has this talent for overcoming dangerous situations."

Lucien sighed loudly. "I guess it doesn't matter too much at the moment, we have other important things to handle. What's done is done and we need to focus on how we are going to move forward."

"I agree, but what do we do now?" Kelsa asked frustratingly.

"First we need to contact the Royal Family at once, but not too soon, as we won't be able to question the princess if they come and take her away. I suspect her guard will have already made contact but try and delay them."

"Are you sure we want to risk offending them? If we weren't willing to offend the other families, why are we going to risk offending the Royal Family?"

"We're not, don't worry, we are going to be even more polite with the princess. I don't want any outburst like you just did. I want to ask the princess some general questions and see how her story aligns with the boy. We have no idea how close the two of them had gotten during their time away, and we have no idea what they did for these past several months. For all we know they hate each other," he said to the still-irritated woman while adjusting his glasses.

Kelsa appeared to accept this reasoning and nodded her head. When he saw this, he notified someone to go get the princess and bring her in.

He didn't expect to get anything new from the girl if the boy was any indication, but it wouldn't hurt to check.

***

Julius POV

After hanging out at their secret spot, it was time to head back to his dorm. A place that he hadn't been back to in a very long time. He couldn't help but wonder what his roommate might think upon seeing him again.

Hell, he didn't even know if he had a roommate anymore. Did the school just remove all of his stuff when he was gone? He had no idea.

When he reached the door to his room, he checked the inside with [Spatial Perception] and immediately sensed Henry inside. However, what caught his attention was that he wasn't alone. Several students were hanging out inside, looking like they were having fun.

He hesitated momentarily and pondered whether it would be worth it to just sleep somewhere else tonight. The training rooms always had a nice comfy mat if his memory served him correctly.

With that being said, it would probably be best just to rip the bandaid off. He would rather just get it over with. Plus, he would love to sleep in a real bed tonight. So without any further ado, he opened the door and walked in.

Everyone in the room turned to see who had entered.

He recognized two of the other people right away. Chris and Garrett, he believed their names were if he could recall correctly. The other three girls he didn't recognize at all.

"Who are you?" A blonde girl with many bangles on her wrists asked him.

"How did you get in? Was the door locked?" Another black-haired girl asked.

He ignored them, which seemed to frustrate them, and merely looked over at Henry to see his reaction.

Henry had his mouth wide open and was staring at Julius like he was seeing a ghost. His friend, Garrett, poked the other boy in the side. "Wait, isn't that you know…?"

"When did you get back?" Henry finally asked after a while.

Julius shrugged. "I just got back today."

"Wait, does that mean the princess is back too?" Henry asked with surprise, coloring his voice.

Seeing no reason to hide what would become common knowledge tomorrow, he nodded his head.

"Hold up, Henry. Is this your old roommate? The one who disappeared along with Princess Reinera several months ago?" The blonde girl asked loudly.

Henry turned to her and nodded his head. "It is and I will explain things a little later, but could you guys give us some privacy?"

"Come on! This is the boy who everyone thought was dead alongside the princess, and now you want us to leave before we get to ask him what happened?" The blonde exclaimed.

Julius chuckled at the whole situation. He wasn't that surprised that they didn't even know his name and only knew him as the boy who disappeared with the princess.

He gave Henry a shrug of his shoulders. "I already talked to the school earlier and they have asked me not to share anything with the other students yet. So if you want to ask me what happened, you are going to have to wait until the school releases that information."

It wasn't exactly the truth, but it would hopefully let him escape any more questions without too much trouble.

He looked at Henry. "I don't mind if your friends want to stay, but I am going to relax. I had a long day and sleeping in a bed would be very nice."

Henry frowned and thought for a little bit. "No, it's okay. We were all just about to head off to bed as well," he said with a meaningful look at his friends.

Luckily, they seemed to get the message. Even though they grumbled the entire time, they all eventually gathered their things and left the room.

Julius didn't miss the intensely curious stares he got the entire time though.

Once they had left and shut the door, he quickly changed into more comfortable clothes and flopped into his bed, sighing in pleasure as he had forgotten just how soft the bed was.

He closed his eyes and got ready to go to sleep, but was interrupted.

"You know, I never got the chance to apologize for my behavior towards you when we first met," Henry suddenly said.

He opened his eyes and looked over at his heavily fidgeting roommate.

"Where is this coming from?"

"I did a lot of thinking when you were gone and realized how much of an arrogant douchebag I was to you. I don't know, I just have been feeling really guilty about it ever since," Henry said ashamedly.

Julius was about to say that he shouldn't worry about it and brush the apology away, but he sensed the boy's aura pulse anxiously. It most likely took a lot of courage to come out and apologize like this.

"Thank you. It takes a brave person to apologize like that," he said sincerely.

"That's it? No berating or insulting me? You just accept it like that?" Henry asked, confused.

"What else is there to say? I appreciate your apology, and I don't hold any hard feelings about what happened in the past."

"I don't know, I was kind of expecting you to yell at me or to tell me to eat shit," Henry admitted.

Julius waved his hand at him. "Trust me, I had to deal with a lot more other shit in the past several months than you being an arrogant noble 'douchebag'," he said jokingly.

Henry let out a sharp chuckle. "Yeah… I guess you have."

Smiling softly to himself, he closed his eyes once again.

"So does that mean we're good?" Henry asked after a few moments.

Julius chuckled while shaking his head. "Yeah, we're all good."

He heard Henry release a sigh of relief upon that.

Perhaps, the arrogant boy wasn't so bad after all, he thought to himself amusedly as he fell asleep.