Path to Transcendence

He made sure to keep his mana and aura hidden. He didn’t want his target to run away or to know that he was coming. While he didn’t have a dedicated stealth skill, he still had a brain. He used the natural shadows and the person’s blind spot to sneak up behind them. His perception skill was really good for that sort of thing. He was able to estimate where they were looking with relatively high precision.
However, estimating where their senses were pointing was a little more difficult. However, he took the gamble that they hadn’t noticed him yet. So with great patience, he slowly crept up on them, and it was only when he was outside fifty feet that he made his move.
He knew that fifty feet was when they would notice him.
He exploded from behind the bush, using every bit of kinetic energy to close the distance. They were a second too late, and he was in front of their faces before they realized it.
“Boo!” He shouted in Aubrey’s face.
She squealed in shock, but to her credit, responded quite well. She had already prepared her skills and was throwing a fist at his face. He got out of the way just in time to avoid getting his nose crushed by her ridiculously hard crystalline skin.
When she finally realized it was him, she got even more aggressive, blasting large beams of light at him, trying to chase him down. He was laughing the entire time. It was his little bit of payback. She loved to tease him, and he wanted to get back at her.
Going off her reddened face, it looked like he succeeded.
“Julius!” She scolded him.
“Sorry, couldn’t help it,” he said with a huge smirk and walked over to her.
“Yeah, you could. You just wanted to give me a heart attack,” she grumbled.
“That too.”
“Idiot.”
“Squealer,” he retorted.
“I did not squeal.”
“Yeah, like a little piggy,” he said with a sympathetic pat on her shoulder.
Two of her clones suddenly appeared behind him and tried to tackle him, but he knew her too well. He had expected something like that and had already preemptively moved out of the way.
“Ass,” she muttered. “At least let me get some revenge.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you will find a way to do that in the future.”
She smiled savagely. “You know it.”
He hid the shiver that went down his spine. Perhaps scaring her hadn’t been the best choice in hindsight. He sighed. He and his impulsiveness would get him killed one day. Most likely from one of his friends if he was being honest.
Aubrey might smother him in his sleep, and Lily might mess with his brain to “fix” him, which would probably lead to him becoming catatonic.
“Are you alone? Have you found the others yet?” He asked while looking around.
She shook her head and brushed her hair out of her face. “Not yet. I came across a few people who were very eager to team up with me, though.”
“What did you say?” He asked.
She stared at him flatly. “What do you think I told them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you told them to get lost, or maybe you decided to kill them for asking. I never know with you,” he said with a shrug.
She swung her palm at him, and he didn’t even try to dodge it, letting her hit him. It was deserved. He did notice how much stronger her blows had become. Her physical strength had definitely improved with the training she had gotten from Marcus, Stella, and that weird, gloomy, rude guy that her mother sent over.
He told her as much.
“Thanks! I figured out that if I use my crystal defensive skill as an aid, I can send even more mana through it. It also helps me transfer power to various parts of my body with greater speed and fluidity,” she said proudly, suddenly forgetting that she was mad at him.
They ended up talking as they walked around. He learned that Aubrey had come across far fewer monsters than he had. Apparently, she even found a token hidden inside a cavern without any guardian whatsoever.
There were just a few weaker monsters who had attacked her, but that was it. Nothing like the strong gray monsters he had fought, nor any powerful greater spirits to deal with.
She was actually jealous of him. According to her, it wasn’t fair that he was hogging all of the fun. She had been walking for the past day, bored out of her mind.
“How about we go find something fun to do?” He asked her with a grin.
She grinned right back at him. “With you with me, I don’t think that is going to be a problem. And who knows, we might find the others along the way as well.”
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He didn’t know if he appreciated what she was insinuating. It almost sounded like she thought he was some kind of trouble magnet.
***
Julius could only shake his head and avoid Aubrey’s gaze as they climbed off the flying disk.
“Not a word,” he muttered as they looked at the swarm of monsters coming toward them.
“I’m not complaining. This is exactly what I wanted,” she said with a smile, but that smile dimmed slightly. “Although I wish they didn’t look so disgusting.”
He couldn't help but agree with her. It had been less than an hour since they met up, and they were already about to face these creatures who looked like a laboratory experiment between a frog and a monkey.
Long tongues tangled out of their mouths, and they all had creepy, large eyes. While they had the body of a monkey, their skin had the texture of a slimy frog. He could tell all the way from where they were that there was some kind of nasty substance on their body. He really didn’t want to touch them.
“You said your physical enhancement has improved, right?” He asked her.
She shook her head. “Nah, I still suck at it. Compared to you, I am barely stronger than a Tier 2. I think it would be for the best if you take them on head-on while I support you from the rear,” she said, lying through her teeth even though she was bragging about her physical improvements not even an hour ago.
“I think I might have injured my body yesterday. I don’t know if I can do it,” he said shamelessly.
“You have a healing skill,” she said flatly.
“It’s not working for some reason,” he replied with a saddened look on his face.
“So when you surprised me and moved like a bolt of lightning, that was just an anomaly?” She pointed out.
Julius nodded. “I hurt myself even more,” he added.
“That’s fine. I didn’t know you were a coward,” she taunted him. He knew what she was doing, and he wasn’t going to fall for it. He had already done so many times in the past, and he had learned from his experiences.
“Why don’t we just both shoot at them from far?” He offered.
She glanced at him and then back at the approaching monsters.
“Sure, but don't you dare splatter them on me. If you do, I will tell Lily about the time you stole her dessert from her,” Aubrey threatened.
“It was one time! Plus, I thought she was finished with it!” He argued.
“I’ll still tell her,” she said, already channeling mana into her skills.
He grumbled but promised her that he wouldn’t get her messy. Then started to create constructs of his own.
Over two dozen needles flared into existence. These needles were different from his usual constructs. Instead of forcing them to become as hard and sharp as possible, he made them with the intent to burn his opponents. They were more like thin flames that looked like needles.
He took some inspiration from the mage he had fought last night and started to spin the flaming needles, letting the flames flicker with intensity, feeding them with his ruinous aura. The firestorm he had been subjected to did an excellent job of allowing the fire to burn freely while still under control.
Aubrey paused what she was doing to look at him.
“What is that? Something new?” She asked.
He grunted, not having enough brain power to focus on talking and creating these new needles of flame.
“What about we have a bet?” She suddenly offered.
He glanced at her with a questioning look, still stabilizing the needles, attempting to find the perfect balance between them. He wanted them hot enough to burn his enemies but also hard enough to penetrate strong defenses.
“Whoever kills the most gets the next token, yeah?” She asked.
He nodded in agreement. That sounded fine to him. It wasn’t like he was planning to lose.
She grinned when he agreed and quickly summoned over a dozen of her clones all around them.
He closed his eyes in realization of why she made that bet. She was truly shameless.
Her clones were already attacking these freakish monsters. They were sending out beam after beam, creating a devastating crossfire where the rapidly approaching monsters were mowed down.
The beams were far more powerful than they used to be and slammed into the beasts’ bodies, blistering their skin with the intense force of the attacks. He couldn’t allow her to keep on slaughtering them and quickly sent his flaming needles screaming toward the monstrous monkeys.
They didn’t move as fast as his regular needles, but he didn’t need them to. They were fast enough as is, and the true potential came after they made contact with the creatures. Funnily enough, because she had attacked before Julius, she had distracted them well enough that they weren’t able to sense or anticipate Julius’s barrage.
The needles ploughed through the monsters. Some of them even managed to shoot straight through their bodies. The rest were hit in various places, but then the needles imploded. There was a small shockwave from the force released, but Julius didn’t create them for their explosive power. He made them burn.
And burn they did.
The creatures shrieked out in pain as the flames spread all over their bodies. The flames got larger and larger as they devoured the monkey’s aura. His ruinous aura synergized very well with his fire. Each monster fed into his fire, creating this endless cycle of flames and destruction.
“Hey! What the hell is that?” Aubrey shouted from her side of the battle.
“Don’t worry about it. You should focus on your end,” he yelled back at her.
“You are such a cheater!” She yelled at him.
“No, you are just a sore loser,” he taunted her with a scoff.
She cursed at him and started to go even harder. She had been a little hesitant to get close or too aggressive on account of how ugly and disgusting these things were, but now she didn’t seem to care. She threw all of her clones at these monsters and did her very best to beat Julius.
She was very competitive, and he actually frowned when he sensed that she was killing more monsters than he was. But he didn’t start going on a rampage. As much as he wanted to, at the end of the day, he didn’t mind if she won. Also, he would much rather use this time to improve his fire abilities.
If he were to start going all out, then he would lose that chance. While she would most likely gloat if she won, he would just ignore her.
In the meantime, he had noticed some things about his fire that he wanted to change. He made minor fixes here and there, trying to perfect the blue flames. Some stuff worked, while other things failed miserably.
He had no idea how he did it, but something he did to his fire made it start to release uncontrollable bursts of flame. They weren’t even useful bursts. They were just visual little flares that did nothing but hurt his eyes.
He continued to make adaptations, and before long, all of the monsters had been taken care of. Aubrey was breathing a little heavily, but there was a large smile on her face. She knew she had beaten Julius in their little “bet” and was proud of it.
He wasn’t looking forward to her lording it over him for the next few hours. But such was the sacrifice he had to make for his friend.