Path to Transcendence

He was whistling cheerily as he was walking back inside, and just as he entered the kitchen, he spotted Marcus sitting at the table by the window. The man looked up upon hearing Julius.

“Hey, out there practicing?”

Julius gave a halfhearted shrug. “Not really. I was playing with my skills.”

“Most people would call that training.”

“Maybe.”

Marcus nodded slowly. “Are you still okay with attending the meeting tomorrow?”

Julius went over to a cupboard to search for any snacks, and while examining a jar of dry tea, he responded, “Yeah, I don’t see a reason why not. I’m curious as to what the city lord wants to talk about.”

Lily was supposed to speak with the city lord tomorrow about her next steps and several other issues. Julius wanted to see how these people from Goldmere were going to treat her. Especially with Marcus not going with them.

There was a strategy of doing things like this. Lily was hoping that without Marcus watching over the meeting, they would be less cautious and slip up. People were a little too mindful about Marcus, though for good reason.

Angelina would also be there, but more to record the meeting's notes. Speaking of the woman, Julius had met her the other day and thought that she was quite capable, if a bit stiff. However, Lily’s father insisted that Angelina accompany her during her trip to Corvus.

“You worried?”

Julius shook his head and started to brew himself some of the tea leaves he found. “Not really. As we both know, Lily can fight her own battles. I’m just going to be there as an observer and to bait them into making any mistakes. You want some?” he offered, holding up the tea with his left hand.

“Sure, I’ll take one,” Marcus said with a gracious smile.

Julius heated up the kettle with his fire mana, making sure to be careful with how much heat he added. He didn’t want to make the water too hot and burn the tea leaves. When it was ready, he poured the hot water over the leaves and closed his eyes as the aromatic steam billowed over his face.

To his pleasant surprise, he felt a faint wave of calm and refreshing air infused into the steam. Then he grabbed a chair beside Marcus, sitting down while he waited for the tea to steep.

“What about you? Are you worried that they might actually try something tomorrow?”

Marcus tapped the table. “If they are smart, they won't do it in front of the city lord, but I learned it's not good to assume people will act intelligently. It's often the idiots who you need to watch out for. I’m sure you two will be able to handle whatever they throw at you. That being said, I’d rather if they didn’t do anything in the first place.”

“You predict the city lord will act against her?”

“No, the man seems to be a man of his word. But if he tries anything, it would be through a proxy. That said, I’m more concerned about the other parties attending the meeting,” Marcus noted.

“Do we know who’s showing up?” Julius asked.

“Not yet. I suspect the city lord is doing something like this on purpose. I think he wants to control the initial meeting on his terms.”

“Is there anything specific you want me to do?” he asked curiously.

“Just act like a young, if slightly brash teen who is trying to impress Lily. But if anyone starts to be a little more forceful or rude than necessary, don’t hesitate to throw away the act and put them in their place. Knowing you, it shouldn’t be that hard. There will only be a couple people there who pose a threat to you, and they shouldn’t be the ones causing trouble,” Marcus explained, looking down at the table and drawing circles into the wood.

“You have a lot of trust in me, huh?”

Marcus stopped messing with the table and glanced up at him with a meaningful look on his face. “You may be doing a better job now, but I still remember your aura when you just left the Obsidian Vault. There is no hiding that kind of strength. I don’t know what you went through this past year, but it’s obvious that you’ve gotten quite a bit stronger. Or am I wrong?”

Julius shrugged noncommittally and started to pour the tea. The aroma from the tea indicated that it was ready.

“Hard to say. Compared to the year before, I felt like I didn’t progress as much,” he said smoothly.

He didn’t add that from his perspective, it had been way more than a year, taking into consideration his time inside the vault. He also didn’t mention that most of his time was spent recovering from various soul injuries. But Marcus was right; he’d gotten stronger, and depending on what he was comparing it to, he would say quite significantly too.

In the time since he’d seen Marcus, he might have still been a Tier 4, but now he was the proud owner of two legendary skills, not to mention two more on their way. He got a new concept as well as a better handle on his Authority, mana, and kinetic energy. Not to mention he had undergone his third soul evolution, which had massively improved his abilities across the board along with his already powerful aura.

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He’d been able to beat that Tier 5 from the Conclave before, but now he was even more confident that the current him would have crushed that man with ease.

“I would like to see what you consider ‘not much’,” Marcus said with a slight grin, taking the mug of tea with a grateful tip of his hand.

“Maybe you will,” Julius said with a light chuckle.

Marcus hid another grin by taking a sip of his tea.

“Hmmm, this is well brewed,” he complimented sincerely.

“Thanks, I’ve learned from some people,” Julius said proudly, but then remembered who’d initially taught him how to brew tea properly. He’d already asked Lily the other day about how Edwin had been doing. Unfortunately, his old mentor was still in his self-induced coma. Lily and Derek’s families were working on him, but it was proving hard to unravel whatever skill he used on himself. Thankfully, he seemed fine other than that.

Deciding that he needed to shift his mind away from the depressing thoughts about Edwin, he changed topics. Instead, he asked Marcus for some advice.

“Hey, I got a new skill evolution, and there were some options for its advancement,” he said with a frown.

“And you want some advice on what to choose?”

“Sort of. I wanted to ask you about the relationship between their skill names and the titles of Tier 6s.”

Marcus laughed. “You’re asking the wrong person. I’m not Tier 6 yet; I don’t have a title. You should ask your masters when you see them.”

“They are stingy about what they tell me,” he grumbled.

Marcus laughed again. “Okay, what do you want to ask? I can’t promise I can answer it though.”

Julius nodded in understanding. “I wanted to ask what you knew about skills that are titled with descriptors such as tyrant or lord. Is there a significance to them that I should be aware of?”

Marcus almost spat out all of his tea over himself.

“You got a skill offered that has the descriptor ‘Lord’ and ‘Tyrant’ in it?”

He nodded hesitantly. “Yeah, is that an issue?”

Marcus rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No, just… a lot to digest all at once is all.”

“Why?”

“Because having a skill offered like that means a lot. There is a lot of subtext and information I can surmise if you were indeed offered such a skill. For one, that means it’s a legendary skill. Secondly, I’m assuming you already have a feat, and one pretty strong if you are being offered a skill like that at Tier 4. Am I correct so far?”

Julius nodded.

“Okay, then your decision is easy. You should choose one of those skills. You shouldn’t even consider the others. Having a skill like that will do more for you than you can imagine,” Marcus said with so much confidence it unnerved Julius.

“Really?” Julius asked and even started to tell Marcus the names of the other skills he was being offered. He trusted Marcus, and the man had already helped Julius with similar decisions in the past.

Marcus took a while to recover after he heard the names of the skills being offered to Julius. Julius also heard the man grumble something about demons under his breath, but his ears didn’t entirely pick it up.

“[Avatar of Ruin] might be interesting since it's the general upgrade of an already great skill. But I still think the other two are superior. Though if I’m being honest, if you have a choice, you might want to avoid [Tyrant of Destruction]. It sounds quite… intense. It might be the single most powerful skill you were offered, but odds are really high that it will affect your personality and soul more than you might want it to. Skills like this are known to be quite dangerous. Regardless, I would wait. There is no way that a body skill evolution like this one will be easy to endure. So you should take some time to think things through.”

Julius nodded, thinking the same thing. “Understood. Thank you.”

Marcus had given him a lot to think about.

***

The next day rolled around and the time for the meeting was upon them. To his immense displeasure, he was forced to get several articles of clothing prepared for him. Apparently his shirt and pants weren’t formal enough, and he needed something new. He also needed something with House Violet’s emblem on it since he was going to act as Lily’s guard.

But after over an hour of torture, he was finally freed. Lily made sure to finish up some last-minute preparations, and then they were ready to leave.

Just as planned, Marcus stayed behind while Lily, Angelina, and Julius all took the carriage towards the city lord’s estate.

However, he noted that Angelina was staring at him quite steadily. He didn’t get the feeling that she didn’t like him, but he had to admit that he was quite uncomfortable sitting under her gaze.

Lily didn’t seem to notice this, though, or rather, ignored his silent plea for help.

When they finally arrived at the estate, he practically ran out of the carriage and into one of the servants who was about to help Lily out. Julius quickly apologized and helped Lily out on his own.

The estate was quite grand. It was certainly one of the larger mansions he had seen in Goldmere so far. It was over five stories tall and had several distinct wings. Tall ivory pillars were carved onto the side of the building, and he saw a very tasteful array of flowers and other flora all around the courtyard.

He also noticed that there were quite a few carriages off to the side with attendants standing beside them. He suspected that these carriages belonged to the people who were already there to attend the meeting.

He didn’t recognize any of them so far, but most of them didn’t have any symbols or crests openly displayed. Some of the people wore uniforms that had something, but he was too far away to make out what they were.

He didn’t get the opportunity to either and was quickly escorted inside alongside the other two. One of the women escorting them knocked on the large double doors, and after a brief second, the doors opened up to reveal a massive conference room.

Bookshelves over twenty feet high lined the sides of the room, and an enormous dark wooden table sat in the middle of it. Sitting around this table were around two dozen people, with almost as many standing around the edge of the room.

There were already quite lively conversations happening, but with the door opening, they all simultaneously shifted their attention to the newcomers.

Perhaps some people might have been nervous about so many obviously important people staring at them, but he strolled in and let their heavy presence flow right off him. Lily didn’t seem the least bit affected either. She had a picture-perfect smile on her face and walked straight towards a man standing at the back window of the room, a man who Julius recognized from reports as City Lord Zheng.

And this is where it begins, he commented to himself.

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