Path to Transcendence

Julius tried to gain distance between them, but they closed the gap instantly. He was trying to survive as long as he could so that [Restoration] could heal his most critical injuries, but the trolls didn't give him any space. They brutally attacked Julius with rage-filled swings, leaving him desperately dodging for his life. His movements were sloppy due to his injuries and took a couple of clips on his arms that fractured more bones. It was only due to his skill that he hadn't taken another direct hit.

All the while, Julius was creating an enhanced [Firebolt], compressing as much mana as he could into it. He couldn't create a second one, not while he was healing and using kinetic mana to evade. But he needed to kill or disable one of them with a single strike. It was the only way.

Julius needed to use kinetic energy to increase the intensity of [Firebolt]. He had been practicing relentlessly ever since he had the idea, but he hadn't succeeded a single time. If there was ever a time it was now, because if he didn't, he would soon be crushed into a nice paste. As he dodged, Julius focused everything on generating even more kinetic energy into the flame. He envisioned it bursting with a brilliant intensity.

He could feel something shift. Not hesitating, he threw every ounce of will into it. Julius unleashed a primal roar of pure desperation and pushed the final key in place. Something snapped into place and the entire construct underwent a qualitative change. It twisted into itself and then expanded to become much thicker and longer. It now resembled a baseball bat in size and form.

This [Firebolt] was much different than the enhanced version. Instead of a violet hue, it was a pale icy blue bolt of mana and released a terrifying pressure of its own. Then using the momentum of an incoming swing, along with a shit ton of mana, he blasted himself as far away as he could. Managing to give himself a good amount of distance, Julius sent the enhanced [Firebolt] at the larger troll. He could feel its weight pressing down on him as it shot toward the troll.

It reached the troll so fast, that he could barely track it. One moment it was hovering over his shoulder and the next it was surging across the plains in a blue line.

The icy blue [Firebolt] tore straight through the troll's head. Leaving a perfect one-foot hole where its eyes and mouth were. The bolt continued flying even after it went through its target, detonating against the mountain in the distance. Leveling the mountainside in a violent explosion, creating a shockwave you could see from far away.

It was so astonishing, that even the other troll had paused and looked toward the destruction Julius had caused. It looked at its leader's corpse and then at the mountain, and then shifted its attention to Julius with wide eyes.

The anger in its eyes had faded. Now there was only fear present in its gaze. It didn't even try to fight anymore, it just turned away and ran. It took Julius some time to comprehend what had just happened but he got his bearings back before the troll could make it very far.

He created another compound [Firebolt], this time with much less mana. And sent it screaming towards the retreating troll's back. This one didn't tear through his target, but it detonated on impact, annihilating half of the thing's back in a single attack. It fell toward the grass, twitching in jerky motions. It still wasn't dead, its ridiculous skill was keeping it alive and trying to heal it.

These things were truly cockroaches. They don't even die with half of their body blown apart, it was insane. However, he did not let it suffer for too much longer and put a [Firebolt] in the thing's head. Julius had barely any mana left and most of it was life mana, which was still trying to heal him back to health.

He dropped to his knees, the pain and exhaustion finally catching up to him now that it was over. [Restoration] had almost healed him, with just some minor fractures and fatigue remaining. Thus, he just laid down for a moment and waited for it to finish up.

The new technique he created at the end still shocked Julius. He knew it would increase its power, but he didn't expect it to increase by that much.

When he had been practicing he had been trying to feed kinetic energy to the flames. In the end, he realized that wasn't the correct line of thinking. Julius was already condensing a lot of kinetic energy and fire mana when he made an enhanced [Firebolt], but he never thought of them feeding off each other. Typically, they would interact separately, one was hot and the other had force.

However, he figured out how to blend them so that they each amplified one another. It was more effective than he could hope for. However, the amount of mana it took for the [Firebolt] that took the leader out, cost over a quarter of his fire and kinetic mana. It wasn't something he could use that often in a fight, but its firepower spoke for itself.

Out of nowhere, his stomach started to grumble, making its displeasure known. Julius also noticed how thirsty he was. He almost forgot that his main reason for going to the mountain was to find a water source. For the first time, he was envious of those with a water affinity. However, he didn't waste any time. He got up to his feet and before he made his way to the mountain, he went over to the bodies of the trolls. Rummaging through their chests, Julius found several cores with life affinities.

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He didn't know what he would do with them yet, but they might come in handy later on. While he was walking, he took a look at the massive mountain range in front of him. It was hard to estimate how tall it was, but there were many crevices, overhangs, and trees littered all across its surface. Now that he was closer, he could tell there were many towering peaks dusted with snow that were separated by large canyons. It almost felt a bit unnatural the way the rock formation was structured.

As Julius was walking toward it, he checked his notifications.

[Firebolt lvl 5 -> lvl 9]

[Thermal Compression lvl 4 -> lvl 7]

[Savage Dance lvl 2 -> lvl 4]

[Kinetic Release lvl 9 -> lvl 10]

It might have been one of the largest increases he had seen yet. Though that made sense, it was the most dangerous situation he had been in. Fighting four opponents two tiers above him increased his skill gains by quite a bit. The attack at the mansion didn't really count, Julius had been constantly protected by Lukas and Edwin.

Lukas and Edwin… Julius's mind wandered to them. It hadn't been long, only two days, but it had already seemed like more time had passed. Julius was so busy trying to stay alive that he didn't have all that much time to worry about them. Almost getting eaten by monsters three times in less than two days would do that.

On a bright note, it seemed like [Kinetic Release] had finally leveled up to level 10. He was heavily anticipating what kind of options he would have.

Skill [Kinetic Release] has reached level 10. Would you like to evolve [Kinetic Release]?

Skill [Kinetic Release] is evolving… possible advancements: [Kinetic Burst], [Kinetic Trap], [Kinetic Distribution], and [Kinetic Reinforcement]

Julius had four options available. All of them sound very useful and interesting. [Kinetic Burst] was most likely the direct upgrade. [Kinetic Trap] sounded interesting, it was probably offered because of the way he used clumps of kinetic mana to ambush the wolf. It would a be good skill for setting up traps and ambushes, which has been Julius's main style so far. But it wasn't what he wanted to become in the future. He was forced to rely on these tactics because he was of a lower tier than his opponents, but it didn't fit into the style he envisioned for himself.

[Kinetic Distribution] appeared to be what he had been expecting. It sounded like it added absorption to the skill, which could help with many applications. [Kinetic Reinforcement] was the one that appealed most to him. Right now, Julius was like a glass cannon. He could put out a lot of damage with enough time, but his physical abilities were far behind. [Kinetic Reinforcement] would balance him out nicely.

With that being said, would being a balanced fighter keep him alive? If he was honest, the only reason he was alive was because of his offensive prowess. If his attacks were any less powerful, the trolls would have tanked his assault and healed without stopping. Julius would not have been able to kill even the first troll if his [Firebolt] was too weak.

It came down to the decision of whether to improve what he was good at or to address some of his weaknesses.

[Kinetic Reinforcement] sounded different than how Julius was using kinetic energy. Currently, he would send bursts of kinetic mana to his limbs to either increase his speed or deliver a kinetic strike to his opponents. However, he didn't reinforce his body at all. It was constantly getting ripped apart by his violent applications of kinetic mana. With the sheer quality and quantity of his mana, he could be pumping much more kinetic energy through his body, but it was too weak to handle it. He would burst like a bubble if he tried to use any more.

It was only due to [Restoration] that he was able to use kinetic energy in his legs earlier with so much force. Even then, he could feel his muscles being broken down and his skeleton cracking from the pressure.

When it came down to it, he felt like he could reproduce the effects of [Kinetic Distribution] without the skill. He had already been using the absorption aspect without a skill, but how much would losing the release aspect affect his constructs? On the other hand, he didn't feel as confident replicating the reinforcement ability.

It was a difficult choice and he contemplated it while he was hiking his way up the mountain. He didn't spot any more trolls but he realized that the mountain wasn't as simple as he thought. Several trails led further up the mountain, but there were also several paths that led deeper into the heart of the mountain. He was expecting the trolls to come from one of the paths and that there was a population somewhere either further up or deeper in.

It was impossible to know from where he was, but Julius expected a mountain like this to have some sort of runoff. It might be on the other side of the range, but he was also worried that was where the trolls or other monsters would settle near. Most species needed a consistent source of water, but right now Julius wanted to avoid any more trolls or monsters for the day. So instead of walking around the mountain to find a lake or other water source, he was hoping to find a small stream that ran down the cliffs.

He took a path that took him deeper down into a ravine-like structure and hoped it led to some water. The walls of the ravine were quite wide and blocked out much of the sun, making it feel cold and moist. However, he had [Spatial Perception] on and was keeping an eye out for any creatures or signs of water.

After only several minutes, he sensed moving water just up ahead. It was flowing down from a ravine's walls and gathering in a pool of water at the base. Julius didn't sense anything other than some small animals, and immediately dashed for the water, giving it a small test before gulping down mouthful after mouthful of the delicious icy cold water.

Once he was satiated, he took a break on a small rocky shelf and just laid down. It had been a long day and he still needed to choose which skill he was going with.