Path to Transcendence

He sighed in pleasure as the cooling sensation of the water wrapped around his body. It was as if all his worries and anxieties were washed away. The girl had been trying to tell him some nonsense about the water being dangerous.
He didn’t know what she was going on about. Sure, the turtle was dangerous, but the water was anything but harmful. It was a treasure.
He dove beneath the water’s surface. As much as he would have liked to relax in the lake for a little more time, he didn’t want to risk the turtle sneaking up on him again. Last time it had taken one of his toes, but perhaps the next time it would go after something a little more valuable.
He looked down worryingly and placed three separate barriers around his groin area. It didn’t hurt to be extra cautious.
Once his head was underwater, he could see much more clearly. He didn’t spot the turtle again, but he headed straight for the glowing bit of light at the bottom of the lake. Thankfully, he had learned that as long as he had some mana, he didn’t require oxygen. His healing skill would be able to prevent him from dying of asphyxiation.
He passed by a small school of fish, which all looked at him with a surprising amount of cognitive awareness. He had a suspicion that the water’s unique properties allowed the creatures living in the lake to form some higher level of intelligence.
He waved toward them as they swam by him. They didn’t respond to him, but he didn’t see any harm in being polite and continued on his way. He used a small amount of kinetic energy to give himself a boost downward, being careful not to use too much. He didn’t want to detonate an explosion in this lake accidentally. He had no idea what else could be dwelling down here.
When he finally got to the light, he felt that there was a much higher concentration of mana and aura in the area. Perhaps this glow was responsible for the water having its unique properties. The light appeared to originate from a large hole or cavern-like area at the bottom of the lake bed.
He couldn’t quite make it out, so he kicked his feet and continued to go down deeper, getting closer to the hole.
He kept a close eye on any possible threats; thankfully, with the clear water, his vision wasn’t that impaired. Julius smiled as the familiar purifying sensation intensified. His body, which was already relatively pure since he had a Phoenix skill, still felt some effects. It was more refreshing than anything else, but it was so potent that it almost stung when it came into contact with his skin.
He swam down and didn’t see anything, not until he swam to the very edge of the cavern, where the brilliant blue light was coming from.
Out of nowhere, a ripple of water came shooting at his face. It was practically invisible, and only his advanced mana senses detected the attack.
He quickly threw up a shield to protect his face, and the barrier rumbled as the strike slammed into it. Julius looked around. He might have been able to sense the attack, but with so much concentrated mana around him, it was a miracle he had detected that much. The only thing he was certain of was that the attack came from deeper in the cavern.
Feeling emboldened that his barrier held up very well against that last attack, he continued to make his way into the cavern.
He was once again attacked by an unseen jet of water. This time around, there were half a dozen attacks he was forced to block with his mana barrier. The attacks were pretty intense, not at the level of a Tier 4, but definitely at the top end of Tier 3.
They came from every angle, each one very unpredictable. Too bad for the attacker, he was surrounded by a protective barrier from all sides.
He suspected that many of the other competitors would struggle to deal with these attacks. The fact that they blended with the water made it even more difficult, especially considering how challenging it was to maneuver in the water.
Whatever this little place was, you would likely need to be some water mage or water-specialized fighter to feel comfortable. Even then, it was hard to say if they could move around easily. The water was very unique, and who knows if they could manipulate it like regular water.
He wrapped himself in a barrier of mana just to be safe and used a bit more kinetic energy to get him closer.
More attacks slammed against his barrier; they were getting increasingly more intense, and just to be safe, he decided to utilize his aura. When he detected an attack, he sent out a pulse of his aura to destabilize the structure of the spell.
There was indeed a willpower behind these attacks, but it was no match for him, and he overwhelmed it. The jets of water sputtered out of existence, and he only had to deal with a few stray attacks that got through. The main worry he had was that he was unable to detect where these attacks were originating from. His senses weren't able to pick up anything.
When he got close enough, he spotted something very interesting. The cavern was not very big, but he figured out where the sparkling blue light was coming from. There was a swirling orb of water right at the center of the cavern. It wasn’t just any swirling orb of water, either.
Whoever was throwing these jets of water at him, their willpower was coming from this orb. He could sense some kind of spatial ripples coming from it. Perhaps this was the reason why he wasn’t able to use [Absolute Spatial Perception]? He didn’t know, but now that he had determined the source of the attacks, he increased his efforts at disrupting the jets of water to the point that there wasn’t anything coming out.
The assailant who was behind these attacks was desperately trying to overcome Julius’s willpower, but nothing they did was able to wrestle back control. Julius ruthlessly crushed any attempt and got in close to the orb, staring at it with intrigue.
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He wasn’t able to detect anything from it. At least not anything worthwhile. Thus, he did something questionable and reached out to touch the orb. He wished he could say that he was surprised when he felt himself get sucked into its vortex, but he would be lying if he did.
It felt like he was being run through a washing machine, constantly being spun around, enough to make him dizzy. Thankfully, it didn’t last for long, and in a matter of a few seconds, he was spat out. However, he felt confused because he found himself lying on hard stone, no longer floating in the water.
Above him was a tall archway carved with strange runic symbols. He didn’t know what they meant.
On another note, he was relieved to see that he could now utilize his perception skill. Unfortunately, it didn’t pick up much information. From what he could tell, nothing was around him for at least a hundred feet.
He picked himself up and began to walk down the pathway that the arch overhung. He looked all around, and there weren’t any walls or anything in sight. Just pure darkness that extended infinitely into the void.
He was strolling down this path when he suddenly halted in place.
A voice rang out in his head. It was very similar to Lily’s telepathic communication, but slightly different.
“Are you talking to me?” Julius asked out loud, looking around for the source of the voice. He felt the thing's presence very clearly, but he wasn’t able to pinpoint its exact location. Additionally, he didn’t sense any hostility coming from its open aura, which made him lower his guard a little bit.
The voice gave a brief pause. “
” The voice asked with a confused tone.
Julius shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m new here.”
The voice trailed off.
it finished with a sigh that rang in his head.
Julius smiled. “Sorry,” he apologized with a slight bow of his head.
The voice said to him, sounding baffled at his appearance.
“I am looking for a token. I was told that I would be able to get one if I defeated the guardian protecting it,” Julius explained to the surprisingly intelligent voice. He was very curious as to what kind of creature or person was talking to him.
The voice asked him slowly.
“Yeah, a token,” he said while nodding.
the voice muttered, sounding even more confused.
“Really? I didn’t see it. I just touched the swirling orb of water, and it transported me here,” Julius explained.
“Take your time,” he said calmly as he examined the area he was in.
He still didn’t know where the voice was coming from, but he could still sense the creature’s feelings through its exposed aura. He doubted the creature was human; the emotions and impressions he was getting from it were much different. If not for his experience with Drasil, he might not have been able to discern the nuances of these emotions.
the voice finally spoke again. This time, Julius could sense a bit of exasperation in its aura. He could almost imagine the voice pinching its nose as it talked to him.
“What was it?” Julius asked, feeling very eager to find out what had happened as well.
the voice explained.
“Oh, you’re not the guardian?” Julius asked with a tilt of his head.
“What are you then?” He asked.
the voice stated.
Julius stood up straighter. He had heard about greater spirits, but there wasn’t that much information about them at Goldencrest. He had been planning for Drasil to take that step eventually. Still, all he was able to figure out was that Drasil would subsequently evolve into a greater spirit when Julius had advanced to Tier 5 at the very least, maybe even later. That was something very far away, though. He still needed to advance to Tier 4 before he could even start to think about Tier 5.
However, he still wanted to know more about them just in case. If he could evolve Drasil early, that would be very nice. He was hoping that if the little glutton evolved, Julius wouldn’t have to keep feeding Drasil as much mana. As it was, Julius sometimes spent more mana a day on Drasil than he did on training.
“Greater spirit? Then who is the guardian? And why would they send the token back into this space?” Julius asked.
Vailon said with a light laugh, and Julius felt a wave of mana wash through the area. Suddenly, a blinding light seared his eyeballs, and he tried to blink away the stars in his eyes.
When he finally opened them back up, he was greeted by a magical sight. A humanoid figure cloaked in a sapphire blue robe appeared in front of him. Their skin was a semi-transparent blue that shimmered in the ambient light, and Julius even spotted two little horns on their forehead.
However, the most dazzling part was the sheer amount of mana he felt coming from this creature. It was like being drowned by an ocean of mana, and he was barely able to keep standing because of its pressure.
Thankfully, the pressure was quite soothing and wasn’t as oppressive as Julius had felt from other powerful figures. It was like a warm bath. Still, it was terrifying in its own way.
Yet, there was this amazing mystical property to it that Julius couldn’t pull his eyes away from.
He was almost a hundred percent sure that this was the voice that had been talking to him. The presence and emotions he felt from it were practically identical.
“Gorgeous,” he whispered as he inspected this figure.
“Thank you,” Vailon said with a bright smile, no longer speaking in Julius’s head.
“I thought you said you weren’t the guardian,” Julius muttered with confusion.
“I’m not,” the spirit said and moved to the side. A familiar creature hovered in the air behind the spirit. “She is.”
Julius froze in place and glared at the adorable-looking turtle who was hiding behind Vailon.
"Of course she is," he said while pinching his nose.