Path to Transcendence

His fifth match was finally here. This would be the one that decided whether or not he would advance to the final round.

From here on out, all of his opponents had to win all four of their matches, which meant that none of them were slouches. With that being said, he wasn't worried. As a matter of fact, he found it hard actually to care about the match.

He would do it because he would gain a top sixteen spot this way and a slot for the Interschool Tier 3 Tournament. But at this point, he didn't think anyone could really match him.

He had some fun with some of the fights, there were some opponents which he had learned from, but other than that, there was no real excitement. It wasn't even that the opponents were weaker, but it was the lack of danger present.

With the bracelets, there was no actual risk of harm or death. Which took all of the fun out of it.

So even as he walked through the tunnel toward the field, he couldn't help but frown unhappily. He was tempted just to blitz his opponent and end it quickly. He had some other ideas regarding his new skill to test later today.

[Spatial Crack] was clearly not a regular skill. First, it was highly volatile, so any adjustments he made to the spatial distortion were quite dangerous. Due to his experimenting, he had already blown a few cracks apart and some of his own limbs in the process.

Thankfully, he was a bit more careful and avoided any really bad damage. He has still been trying to connect two cracks and use them as points of transfer. He firmly believed it was possible, and he only needed a little more time to figure it out.

Then there was the whole Tristan situation now. He didn't know if he could trust the other first year, but he didn't really have another choice. If Tristan chose to tell his father about Julius, then he might be in trouble.

It has already been shown that not everyone was safe at Goldencrest. He wasn't going to forget that Reinera was almost killed because someone had messed with the rift. Additionally, they still didn't know who had messed with the Tier 2 rift they entered with Professor Rowe.

The investigation was still ongoing, and so far, it had not revealed any hints about who was responsible.

There were a lot of things going on at once, and it was becoming messy to handle all of them at once. He needed a break, and when the tournament ended, he hoped that would be the time.

On the bright side, his friends were all doing very well. Edgar and Aubrey had already won their matches earlier today, confirming their spots in the top sixteen. Unfortunately, Kyle lost the other day and was out of it.

To be fair, he had done much better than expected, considering his skill set did not lean toward combat at all.

For the Tier 2 tournament, Pollux had also locked in his spot in the final round. Tia sadly wasn't able to make it through. She had lost yesterday in a close match against a second-year mage who managed to avoid getting trapped by Tia's vines.

Joshua had his final match of the second round today. And as luck would have it, he was facing against Adam.

The world had a wicked sense of humor. But Julius was not about to complain about that. He was anticipating that match and already planned to head on over once he finished his match.

He smiled when he walked out and saw the blooming magic constructs decorating the sky. He couldn't help it. It was such a beautiful display of magic. He could see why the tournament was such a big event for the entire city. Even if you didn't like watching people fight, the atmosphere alone was worth it.

There was so much joy and laughter that it was infectious.

He looked around and saw that there wasn't any other match going on. There was just a singular large field surrounded by an equally large barrier.

Since there were fewer matches now, all the attention was placed on his fight.

When the crowd saw him walk out of the tunnel, they roared with enthusiasm. They didn't even need to know who he was. They were simply cheering because they were excited to see another fight.

He saw his opponent walking up as well.

Julius quickly took the time to examine him. All he had been informed was that his name was Darren Silum. He didn't know if he was going to be facing another mage or warrior, he didn't really have time to talk with Lily about him.

But based on pure looks, Julius would go out on a limb and guess that his opponent was a warrior. Of course, he could have easily been a mage, but the hulking muscles, hardened face, and large axe said otherwise.

He did seem kind of familiar, though. He was almost certain that he had seen him before. But he couldn't remember where for the life of him. He racked his brain but failed to come up with an answer to his annoyance.

Julius shrugged his shoulders, not paying any more attention to it, then shoved the crowd noise to the back of his mind and entered the field.

"Ah, look who it is. It's the group pet," his opponent immediately stated with a mocking smirk.

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Julius looked over at his opponent with a scrunched-up nose. He had no idea why he had decided to be rude out of the blue.

"Who me?" He asked while looking around to see if the guy was talking about someone else.

"Yes, you. Who else would I be talking to, you idiot?" His opponent said scathingly.

"What's up with the hostility? Do I know you or something?" He asked, genuinely curious why this guy was suddenly so abrasive. Maybe, he did know him from somewhere, and the guy had a reason why he was being such an asshole.

This didn't seem to be the right thing to say, though, because instead of calming down, Julius was able to feel the anger rise in the guy's aura. He also noticed that the aura was very rageful but in a purposeful manner.

It didn't seem like it was simply just anger, but there was something else that Julius didn't quite understand.

He was actually somewhat interested in the skill, though he didn't feel that mentioning it to the guy would earn him any brownie points.

"You're a cocky little thing, aren't you? Don't think just because you have made it this far, means you are actually strong. You have been lucky up until now, and I am going to prove it in front of all of these people," the guy exclaimed with another mocking grin.

"Okay," Julius said slowly, feeling more confused than angry.

His nonplussed reaction seemed to trigger the other guy even more.

"Oh wait," Julius said suddenly and pointed at the guy.

"I do remember you! You're one of Liam's lackeys, right?" Julius said proudly. He had to dig through many memories until he found a face that looked too similar to the one in front of him. It was quite an impressive feat if he was being honest, and it was likely thanks to his Tier 3 mind.

"Keep on joking. Just wait until I get my hands on you. I am going to rip out your tongue and feed it to the dogs," Darren said angrily.

"Goldencrest has dogs?" he asked wonderingly. That was news to him. He loved dogs, and if he had known there were dogs around, he would have spent a lot more time with them.

Darren frowned. "What? No, the school doesn't have… never mind," he trailed off, deciding not to continue to play along with Julius's games.

It was only when Darren stopped talking that Julius smirked to himself. People like this guy were too easy to wind up. However, he did notice that his opponent was already using some skill. He guessed that it wasn't against the rules since it was an extension of his natural aura, but Julius sensed that the aura had some weird properties.

It was almost like it was trying to infect him with its rageful properties.

As he was examining the aura and how it worked, the official came out and introduced the two of them.

Although the crowd was muted behind the barrier, he could still hear the roars and if he was hearing things correctly, there were a surprisingly large number of people who were cheering him on over his opponent.

He suspected that the crowd was cheering for him because he was a first year and saw him as an underdog or something. But he didn't really care, all he wanted to do was to finish it up so he could resume his training again.

Thankfully, his opponent seemed like he was in a rush too, because the moment the fight began, he rushed headlong at Julius. For a big guy, he could move quite swiftly, and the axe he was able to handle with a single arm without issue.

Julius had to step back to avoid the lightning-fast slash that attempted to remove his head. Although it missed him completely, he still managed to feel a light stinging sensation across his cheek.

He wanted to take some time to understand the sensation a little more, but the follow-up swing that went for his legs rudely interrupted him.

It would seem that his opponent was very much an aggressive fighter, not allowing Julius to dictate the pace at all. However, Julius wasn't all that upset about it.

As a matter of fact, it was a blessing in disguise. Dodging the attacks was quite simple. Although they were fast and sometimes cunning, he was able to easily avoid them with a simple side step. This allowed him a better opportunity to get an idea of how his opponent's aura skill worked, as it was by far the best skill his opponent had, in Julius's humble opinion.

After a few moments, Julius was able to identify the main function of the skill. His opponent would accumulate emotions such as rage or anger to invigorate his aura, which he would then use to empower his body.

Like Julius's own body enhancement skill, it was based on aura enforcement.

However, there seemed to be another effect that was quite an interesting thing to experience. It was almost like a taunting or mind-altering effect. That was the weird feeling he was picking up on before the fight started.

The aura had a passive effect that heightened the opponent's emotions and tried to unbalance them. This was likely why the guy had been so rude at the beginning. Julius assumed that making someone emotionally unstable would only help the skill. It also had an interesting Concept that went alongside it.

He didn't know if he sensed an Emblem, but there was something similar that reminded him of it. Maybe it was a newly blooming one? He wasn't quite sure.

With all that being said, he was fascinated with the skill's ability to target specific individuals. Julius was able to tell right away that the aura skill wasn't like his own. It was able to choose who it affected, not just everything in its general vicinity like [Inexorable Aura of Ruin] wanted to do all the time.

At the moment, [Sage of Savagery] and his own aura abilities were doing a good job of holding back the taunting skill. However, he was very very curious about how skill worked and wanted to be able to experience what the targeting technique felt like with his own senses.

He knew it was probably a bad idea and that it wasn't the best time to start playing around, but he was feeling a bit bored and wanted to spice things up. If the worst came to worst, he would just need to reactivate his defenses.

So, without any further hesitation, he let lowered [Sage of Savagery] and allowed his opponent's aura to seep into his own.

It was funny because even though he was giving their opposing aura space to roam free, Julius could have sworn that the aura felt almost wary of accepting the free passage, like it was scared it was some kind of trap. However, it eventually took the opportunity and started to work its magic.

The entire time this was happening, he was still dodging the nonstop slashes from the man's axe. But he didn't really pay attention to it. He was much too focused on learning how the man's aura skill worked and how it selected specific targets, hoping he could integrate the same technique into his own aura skill.

Even though he had vastly improved his ability to manipulate his aura, there were things he still wanted to upgrade. For example, if there was one thing he was upset about his aura skill, it was that it couldn't differentiate between allies and foes. He didn't like not being in control of his own skill, and he believed that if he was able to learn how his opponent was doing it, he could perhaps replicate the same for his own aura.

So with a little more excitement blooming in his chest, he eagerly let himself get completely enraptured.