Path to Transcendence

Thankfully, Freya was there and was able to pry Cain’s sausage fingers from Julius without smushing Julius in the process.
“Jeez, what’s up with the dramatics?” Julius gasped out.
Cain scoffed. “Dramatics? Someone tells us that the Emperor of the Luminous Empire has my disciple in his private viewing room, and you expect me to be calm?”
Julius smoothed out his clothes. “Well, as you can see, I am perfectly fine.”
“They didn’t mess with your mind?”
Julius held back a sigh. “No.”
“They didn’t stamp a binding spell or carve some kind of servitude ritual onto your soul?”
“No.”
What is up with these questions, and why is Cain asking them?
“What have they done to you then?”
“Nothing?” Julius said with confusion.
“Oh…. You sure about that?”
“Yeah… I think so,” Julius said the first part confidently, but the latter part with some hesitation. Did they do something to him? Would he even know if they did?
“He’s fine. They didn’t activate any of the protections I placed on him, sweetie,” Freya said to them. However, Julius noticed that her gaze hadn’t strayed from the Royal Family this entire time. And concerningly, it wasn’t even directed at the Emperor, but instead focused on Cassian.
“What do you want, Cassian?” Freya asked, her tone ice cold. Her usual warmth was gone.
The man targeted under her frosty glare perked up and spread his arms widely. He didn’t seem to mind the less-than-warm greeting.
“Freya! How nice to see you again! How have you been? I think the last time we saw each other was a few years ago.”
“Yes, and I recall that you were testing out a weapon that obliterated a good portion of the Strasta Mountains,” she noted flatly.
“It wasn’t a weapon,” he proclaimed with a bright smile.
“...”
Freya clearly didn't find this very amusing.
“Okay, it wasn’t designed to be a weapon,” Cassian admitted sheepishly.
“What was it supposed to be then?” Julius couldn’t help but ask.
Cassian looked at him proudly. “It was supposed to be a prototype heating generator that people could install into their homes during the winter months.”
Julius had even more questions upon hearing that explanation.
“Okay, but how did a heater obliterate half of a mountain range?” He asked.
“Because the idiot decided to use the core of a Tier 6 fire affinity beast as one of its main sources of power,” Freya answered, pinching her nose.
"You did what!?" Reinera shouted with a mix of exasperation and shock.
Julius looked at Cassian accusingly. He wasn’t exactly the smartest or wisest person on his best day, but even he knew that sounded like a ridiculous idea.
“What kind of heater were you trying to make? A heater that would cook the entire capital?”
“I wanted something that lasted! Something that people wouldn’t have to worry about replacing in a decade. Something that they could leave to their children and to their children’s children,” Cassian said with a pout.
“I still don’t get why it required using something like a Tier 6 core to power it. You also realize that practically no families would have been able to afford such a priceless artifact, right?” Julius pointed out.
“I know that. I planned to modify it to work with a Tier 3 or Tier 4 core, but I didn’t have any suitable cores on hand. The most suitable core I had was the Tier 6 core from the Scorching Drake I killed a couple months prior,” Cassian said, as if he was offended that Julius would even accuse him of not thinking of that.
“So why didn’t you just go out and buy a core that was suitable for the prototype?” Julius asked with confusion.
“...”
“You didn’t think about doing that…” Julius noted with disappointment.
“O-Of course I did.”
He really didn’t. Julius didn’t know if he was disappointed or worried that the brother of the Emperor was like this.
“At least, I tested the item somewhere safe.” It was as if the man were trying to salvage his reputation.
“You buried an entire village.” Freya’s voice cut through like a razor-sharp sword. Her accusatory tone was clear to everyone.
“How was I supposed to know it was there? Some potent magic hid them from my senses.”
“You
have found it if you had bothered to look harder,” Freya said with emphasis.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Cassian actually looked ashamed for a moment.
“You’re right. I should have looked harder. Also, it’s obvious in hindsight why hiding their presence is necessary for their survival. Still, it was in the
of the
; I didn’t think anyone would be insane enough to try to build an entire village there. Who would want to try to survive in that inhospitable death pit? It’s literally labeled as an extremely dangerous territory in the Northern Region for a good reason.”
She didn’t have an immediate response to that and stared at Cassian, her cold glare letting up ever so slightly.
Julius wouldn’t tell Freya this, but he was starting to lean toward Cassian. It did sound like he took reasonable precautions. He even took his device into the middle of nowhere to test it in case something went wrong. It was pretty reasonable since he used a Tier 6 core to power a common household appliance...
Julius frowned. On second thought, he was leaning back to Freya’s side of the fence the more he thought about it.
“So what do you want? Why are we here?” Cain’s question tore through the already tense atmosphere like a bulldozer.
Unlike Cain’s typical careless attitude, the man was uncomfortably serious. His eyes were hard as steel, and there was a faint hum in the air that radiated outward.
Julius saw that Reinera and Jaxson were extremely stiff, and their eyes trembled as they stared at Cain. Furthermore, he could sense their sharp and unsteady breathing all the way from where he was standing.
He wondered why that was? Were they nervous around Cain? He looked at the almost seven-foot-tall behemoth with a careful examination before shaking his head dismissively.
Nah, he could think of zero reasons why they were so scared around the man. Cain was basically a teddy bear with a buzz cut.
On another note, the Emperor seemed to handle this pressure well enough. Julius didn’t see the man flinch at all. As a matter of fact, he got a totally different feeling from the man compared to when he had seen him on the balcony, when he was giving the speech.
“Reinera wanted to see young Julius after his match, and I thought it would have been inappropriate if I didn’t let you two know, considering your relationship with the boy,” Emperor Lucerius stated calmly to Cain.
Cain narrowed his eyes. “Is that all?”
Reinera’s father glanced at his brother. “Cassian might have mentioned his intent to ask Julius some questions regarding a few of his skills.”
Cain scoffed. “So that’s why you informed us.”
“Yes, that is primarily the reason why I contacted you two.”
“The answer is no,” Cain didn’t even care to be more tactful. He outright denied the request.
“I suspected as much, but I felt like it was worth considering. I would have also liked hearing some answers as well,” the Emperor admitted more readily than Julius or Cain expected.
Julius put his hand up. “I would like to interject since this concerns me a little bit. And I would also like to mention that I don’t mind answering some questions, as long as I get something in return.”
He felt Freya appear next to him, grab his arm, and pull it down. “No, you don’t. You do not need to share your skills with them. It is privileged information that they could use against you in the future.”
“Who do you think we are?” Reinera’s brother suddenly exclaimed. His voice quivered for the briefest of moments, clearly still unnerved by Cain, but he spoke up regardless.
“We are not the sort of people who would stab someone we owe a debt to in the back,” he announced vehemently.
“A debt?” Freya asked with a pointed look. She seemed confused and concerned at the same time.
Jaxson nodded.
“Yes, a debt. As much as he is a good friend of my sister. The fact remains that he helped her advance far sooner than we would have thought possible. I was worried that it would take at the
, a few years for her to develop a decent grasp of her willpower and related abilities, but she returned more prepared than we could have hoped. She made it very clear that Julius had a huge part in helping her. Just this alone means we owe Julius a tremendous debt. Resources are easily bought, but experiences and genuine opportunities gained through one’s own fate are a much greater treasure.”
This seemed to halt whatever Freya was going to say. She looked at Julius contemplatively.
“Is this true?”
He shrugged. “Kind of. I don’t think I had that much to do with it. Most of her improvements were thanks to her own efforts.”
“He also saved her life on multiple occasions, verified by her own admission, which is a totally different matter when it comes to a form of repayment, and is another reason why I asked for him to come. We pay our debts, and since you are his mentors, I believe you would have liked a say in this.” This time, it was the Emperor who pointed this out.
Hmm. Julius stroked his chin in thought.
He didn't really think about that. He was more than willing to offer some information to satisfy his own personal inquiries, but this might work out better than he could have hoped. He didn’t want to brag about it, but he did save the Empire’s Princess a few times.
A reward wasn’t expected from his point of view since Reinera was a friend, but it wasn’t something he would deny either. But there was something that the Emperor could do for him that no other House or individual could.
“It seems you already have something on your mind,” the Emperor commented after seeing Julius’s reaction.
Julius scratched his head and nodded. “Yeah, I do have something I would like to discuss with you. In fact, I don’t think there is a better person to discuss this with.”
“What is it? If it is within my power to grant. I will be more than accommodating to help you with whatever you desire. Although I suspect that with masters as powerful as those two, I can’t do much that they cannot themselves.”
Julius looked around the room and pinched his eyebrows together.
“If you don’t mind. I would rather this conversation be a little more private. Reinera can be included; she is aware of some of the details.”
To Julius’s surprise, the Emperor didn’t even blink upon this request. He simply gave Jaxson and Cassian a look. Thankfully, these two seemed to understand what was being asked, and despite a dejected expression on Cassian’s end, they left the room promptly.
“So what is it?”
Julius hesitated. He had done a lot to hide his family background. Was he finally ready to reveal the truth?
On one hand, it felt like a monumental decision. On the other hand, it felt sort of… inconsequential.
It wasn’t long ago that it had been the most important secret of his, that night constantly plaguing his nightmares.
Yet when he looked at where he was now, everything felt so… different.
Just look at who he was standing in the room with. In front of him was the Emperor of the Luminous Empire and his daughter, who was also Julius’s friend.
At his side stood two of the most powerful people he had ever met, people who even the Emperor seemed to respect and be wary of. Yet, he found it difficult to even speak about something that seemed so insignificant compared to everything he found himself surrounded by.
Or rather, he found it difficult even to know where to begin.
He suddenly felt a hand softly land on his shoulder. He glanced back and saw Freya giving him a soft smile and an assuring nod.
He didn’t know where to begin. So he did the only thing he could think of. He started at the beginning.
"As you might have already suspected, my name isn't Julius Snow. My true name is Julius Von Hyperius..."