Path to Transcendence

Julius listened to the sounds of the battle behind him and noticed that the guy with the shield was quickly being overwhelmed by the redhead's superior speed. It was quite clear that the two had joined up for a reason, and while Julius felt somewhat guilty for putting the guy in that situation, there was also the fact that the woman in the trees was ready to swoop in whenever she wanted to.
He would be lying if he said that it didn’t affect his decision. He would rather have the woman be much more cautious when there were multiple people involved, rather than letting her try to do something when it was almost over.
He let them be as he continued his way to the small lake, making sure that he kept an open eye for people or monsters lurking about. As it had just been proven, there were still plenty of people around, even if the secret realm was supposedly massive.
He smiled when he spotted the woman finally making her move when the redhead got the better of the shield-bearing warrior. She had clearly decided that the redhead was a larger threat of the two and stepped in when he was about to be overwhelmed.
Honestly, it was a good strategy. The shield warrior had enough juice to keep on fighting, but there was no way he would be able to fight the archer woman afterward. He didn’t have much of a chance to win, and he didn’t seem to be very fast, which made escaping a low possibility.
Julius nodded his head in admiration when he saw the woman activate several skills. He could tell right away that they were either really advanced rare skills or epic-ranked skills. They packed a punch, and a storm of arrows swarmed the redhead.
A large dome of fire appeared around him and vaporized the arrows, which were made of mana. However, Julius could tell right away that this used a lot of mana and aura. He suspected that this was the same technique the guy had used earlier. The same one that Julius had detected from so far away. The monster might have ambushed him, and he had been forced to use it to protect himself.
The woman kept up the relentless assault. She must have observed something from the redhead’s fight, because she didn’t let him move an inch. He was forced to focus entirely on defense. He was constantly blocking or rolling on the ground, evading dozens of arrows. He was forced to use that dome of flame a few times whenever he was caught in an uncomfortable situation. She was trying to wear him out, and it was working.
Then, when he was finally showing signs of wariness, she started to add more powerful singular attacks into the mix. These arrows were much more potent and had a lot more mana than the other ones. She kept on hammering him over and over.
Julius suspected he would have already moved away by now, but the redhead was staying near the monster’s body. There was some green glow emitting from the corpse, and they likely believed it to be a token or some kind of treasure. He clearly wasn’t willing to give it up to the archer, and so he persisted.
Julius, on the other hand, was quite happy as he strolled over to the treeline and spotted the lake with his own eyes.
He smiled in amazement when he saw the sparkling blue water. It was like small sapphire gems were scattered across the surface, and before he could stop himself, he rushed over like an excited child. Before he could even think about whether the water was dangerous, he got on his knees and took a big gulp of the crystal clear water.
The moment it hit his tongue, an electrifying sensation rushed throughout his body. It was like being zapped by Derek’s lightning, but in a good way. He unconsciously moaned at the refreshing feeling.
The water was much colder than he would have expected. It was ice-cold, but what was even more interesting was that the water possessed some mysterious properties. He could feel his mana suddenly recover all the way back to full. He hadn’t used all that much, but the increase was noticeable. It wasn’t too shocking since the water contained a shit ton of mana, but the way it seamlessly regenerated his mana pool was.
On top of that, it wasn’t like a usual mana potion. This mana he had gained felt just like his own. There was no real need to infuse his own will into it; it automatically transformed into the perfect mana.
There were also other healing properties. It wasn’t quite as potent as a healing potion, but there was a rejuvenation effect. He didn’t really need it since he constantly used a little bit of [Phoenix Renewal] and Drasil was continually feeding Julius any of his residual mana, but it was still nice either way.
He was tempted to bottle up the entire lake and stick it in his ring to sell. They were not explicitly told about any limit on the amount of treasures they could return with. The main issue was that if you “died,” you wouldn’t be able to take anything with you.
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You either had to survive until the end of the week or complete the trial and leave early. There was also a unique feature where, upon someone’s death, the treasures they had collected would reappear somewhere else.
This caused many people who entered the secret realm, looking for treasures, to hide for the entire week rather than proceeding to the final stage and deciding that it wasn’t worth the risk of dying and losing the treasure.
Julius firmly believed that there was definitely a hidden consequence to this type of strategy. He couldn’t imagine the Empire would incentivize people to burrow themselves in a mountain until the end of the second stage.
He sat down to take another drink of water, using the time to relax and let his feet rest. Since he hadn’t been flying, his feet had to suffer instead. He took off his shoes and wiggled his toes as he took small sips of the delicious water.
He even dipped them in the water and let the remarkable water seep into his skin. He let the wind caress his face as he leaned back on the grassy shoreline. He still didn’t know what exactly made this realm so secret, but he was confident to say that it was one of the most comfortable rifts he had ever entered. That is, if it was even a rift to begin with.
He was enjoying his time when he suddenly felt something extremely hard and very powerful crunch down on his poor big toe. He reflexively flinched and yanked his foot out of the water, high into the air. To his astonishment, a small aquamarine colored turtle a little larger than his fist flew out with it.
It was still latched onto his big toe, showing no signs of letting go. He quickly reinforced his toe with more mana and aura, but it was too late and not enough. The turtle’s strong beak tore through his bone and flesh like it was wet cardboard.
With nothing left to hold onto, the turtle flew out into the sky, and Julius, rightly feeling upset, smashed a fist into the turtle. He didn’t even bother to hide his kinetic energy; he had charged it into his fist instinctively.
The turtle experienced the full force of his punch, and Julius felt a slight crack under his fist as the turtle was sent flying off into the trees. Still, it didn’t go too far because it was much heavier than it looked. It was denser than a lead cannonball.
Julius quickly put his socks and shoes back on. He may have been attacked, but he had his priorities in place. He wasn’t about to fight without his shoes, not if he could help it. He also made sure to cauterize his missing toe with some fire mana. He didn’t want any blood seeping into his socks.
Only when he had his toes shoved back into his shoe did he regenerate his missing big toe and stand up on both feet. He looked in the direction he had sent the turtle off with an awkward frown.
Julius was very startled by three things. One, he hadn’t been able to sense the turtle at all, even with [Absolute Spatial Perception]. Two, his physical defenses were overcome with incredible ease by a Tier 3 monster no less. And three, he hadn’t shattered the turtle into a million pieces when he used a full-powered kinetic punch on it.
Experiencing one of those three things was already rare enough as is, but experiencing all three at the same time from the same creature was a complete mystery to him. Luckily, the turtle was quite small and only managed to take a small chunk out of him. If it were a bigger monster, Julius was worried he might have lost a lot more than a simple toe.
He threw out his senses to find out where he had sent the turtle flying, and to his surprise, he found it quite quickly. It was by the trees, and Julius sensed a faint pulse of life mana from the creature. The thin crack on its shell that Julius had created was already healed over.
He also noticed that this turtle was alarmingly cute. It had an adorable set of legs and equally cute eyes. There was a surprising amount of intelligence in those eyes as well. They glanced at him as if he were thinking about something. Then, to his shock, it disappeared and appeared right next to the shore of the lake.
He asked himself internally, in complete disbelief.
Before Julius could make a move, it had already paddled itself back into the water. The lake rippled as the turtle disappeared under its surface.
Thankfully, he had solved one mystery of this turtle. It wasn’t as if the turtle had a skill to hide from his spatial senses, but it was the water’s doing. The moment the turtle swam in the water, it vanished from his senses. The sneaky little bastard must have known that the water hid its presence and used that to ambush Julius from underneath the water.
So when he dipped his toes in the water, he was simply offering the creature a delicious snack.
As much as Julius wanted to be mad, he couldn’t find it in himself to blame the turtle all that much. He was still pissed off that it had eaten his toe, but to be honest, if he was sitting in the middle of a park and a random tasty-looking pastry appeared in front of his eyes, he probably would have taken a nibble as well.
He looked all over the lake, but despite the crystal clear water’s appearance, he wasn’t able to spot the turtle at all.
He didn’t know what kind of creature or monster it was, but he was quite confident that it was much stronger than that feline monster had been. After all, it had taken a fully powered punch from him and had been able to pierce through his defenses with alarming ease. That feline monster would have likely popped like a balloon if it had taken that punch.
Despite its adorable and small appearance, this monster sat at the pinnacle of Tier 3. Of that, he was sure. He looked at the lake's surface as his mind went through various scenarios and tried to come up with some solutions for his current predicament.