Path to Transcendence

After the beach with the others, Julius went back to his room. He didn’t know if his roommate was still there but thought there was a good chance he was. Last night Julius had noticed a lot of bags and items that hadn’t been unpacked yet. So, there was a good chance the other boy was still moving in.

Julius walked through the campus, observing how much more busy it was in just a matter of a day. Now, it seemed like the entire campus was alive with hundreds of students going back and forth. There were students of every kind.

He even saw some beastkin and half-elves roaming around campus, trying to find their dorms. Julius tried to squeeze his way through the crowds, but it was hard without outright shoving people of the out way. No wonder the others chose to get back to school early, it was a madhouse.

Finally, after double the amount of time it should have taken, he got back to the Crescent Dormitory. There were many staff around trying to direct students where they should go and trying to keep the chaos to a minimum. Julius barely got through the hallway to his room, where he found his roommate unpacking his stuff with the door open.

Julius squeezed past a particularly large amount of luggage from another room and went into his room. The boy must have heard Julius, because he turned around.

“Hello! You must be my roommate, I am Henry Bishop, of the Bishop Clan,” he introduced himself and extended a hand.

Julius reached over and shook the other boy’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Henry, I am Julius Snow.”

Julius saw Henry look him over like he was deciding whether or not Julius would be worth befriending. Julius didn’t like it. But he would at least give the other boy a chance. After all, they would be living under the same roof the year.

“I don’t think I have had the pleasure of hearing about a family with the surname of Snow. Are you perhaps from another country? Maybe Corvus?” Henry asked him with a plastic smile.

Julius knew what he was doing. It wasn’t that subtle, but he would play along for now. “No, I am from the Empire, just a commoner, not a noble.”

“Oh, that is a shame,” Henry said. Then he turned around ignoring Julius, and continued unpacking.

It does really sound like it is a shame. Julius thought to himself.

He had been having a lot of good luck lately with nice people and he was praying that his roommate would be one too. However, that didn’t seem like it was the case.

As long as they both could be somewhat respectful and courteous of each other’s space then Julius didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be spending a lot of time in his room anyway.

Julius went over to his side of the room where he saw a pile of clothing on his bed. It appeared that someone had dropped off his uniform this morning. It was a very elegant uniform of soft black cloth and brilliant gold embellishments that fit the style without being gaudy.

There were only two of them, as well as some other clothing he expected was for training. A note accompanied the uniform. It said that each uniform was enchanted with a self-cleaning feature and would completely disinfect the uniform with a small amount of mana. It was a good choice on the part of the school.

He couldn’t even imagine how much it would cost and waste time washing every student's uniform every day. It most likely saved them time, money, and energy with this one enchantment.

Julius quickly stripped down and put his uniform on. He didn’t mind that Henry was still in the room, he would have to get used to changing in front of him if they were to be roommates. The uniform fit perfectly, it was sharp but also loose in all the right places. Whoever made them knew what they were doing.

Julius made sure to feed Drasil before he left again. A part of Julius was worried about leaving Drasil in the same place as Henry, but decided it wasn’t a good decision at least for now. There were too many people moving back in today, and it was already hard enough to weasel his way through the crowd without a plant in his hands.

Plus, while Henry might be an arrogant noble, he didn’t think he would waste his time beating up a plant. If he did, Julius would make sure he would smother Henry in his sleep.

He headed off to the library, which surprisingly wasn’t that busy. There were more people than yesterday and this morning, but nothing on the scale of the rest of the campus.

Julius went off and found the book he had been reading earlier, The Creation of Mana Furniture. It was an entire book that caught his attention. It was about using mana of different affinities to create items such as chairs, beds, or other house furniture items.

It didn't sound like it would be useful, but Julius remembered all the times he had spent in the ravine when he was in the rift, wishing he had something soft to sit on.

The author had written the book for those at Tier 3 mainly. Apparently, this was because it was only at Tier 3 that one began to use ambient mana more freely. Julius could use it to very little effect and understood how difficult it was. It was like trying to write in a totally different language.

He had read some hints of what Tier 3 meant, and from what he could decipher, it was a stage where your core and your body became one. At Tier 1 it was about creating a Core. At Tier 2, it was about saturating your body with mana, to make it adaptable and easier to use mana. Tier 3 was about combining your core with the Affinity Body you created at Tier 2. A fully-fledged Tier 3 should not have a core anymore, but their entire body should act like a core. Being able to store and generate mana with every inch of their body.

It was a difficult process and one that was determined by how well you formed your Core and Affinity Body. It was a qualitative increase in power, one much higher than going from Tier 1 to Tier 2.

However, that was pretty far off for Julius right now. He still needed to get to Tier 2, before he could think about that.

As for this moment he wanted to learn how to create his own comfy chair. Not just a hard wooden chair, but a soft leather recliner. One where he could fall asleep. The author mentions that using ambient was better because it didn’t have any innate properties, which made it easier to change to suit your needs. On the other hand, if you had fire mana, as Julius did, then whatever you created with fire mana would have fire mana properties.

In his case, that meant he would be sitting on a hot plate if he created a chair right now. That wasn’t the only issue, he didn’t know how to soften his constructs. He knew how to make them harder and more dense, but he didn’t know how to soften his fire constructs.

That was why he had also grabbed a book detailing a common fire skill that some mages learned, [Fire Whip]. The problem wasn’t if Julius was able to twirl around fire mana like a rope, but his problem was making it physical. The second he wanted the construct to become tangible and not just a mass of glowing fire mana, he would need to harden it. Which led to it becoming firm and no longer malleable. Kind of like glass making in a way.

[Fire Whip] was an interesting skill for that same reason. It allowed the user to create a tangible whip of fire that you could interact with and also manipulate more flexibly. If he learned how to do this, then creating a soft chair out of fire mana wasn’t out of the picture.

So until dinner, he read about chairs made of mana and about the [Fire Whip] skill.

Julius didn’t go to the main cafeteria today. This time for the first time, he went to the underclassmen cafeteria.

It was chaos, students yelling at the top of their lungs, jostling for a position in line. He even saw multiple scuffles break out of nowhere and some of the staff had to intervene and discipline the students.

He finally fought his way through the line of hungry students and made it out barely alive. He then tried to find somewhere to sit, but there was no empty table, there were some open seats but he would need to sit next to someone.

Julius sighed and picked a table at random, that didn’t seem as rowdy as the others. It reminded him of a high school cafeteria. There were already cliques forming. One table had only nobles, eating with diligent manners and decked out in expensive jewelry, there was another table full of girls who were laughing and giggling annoyingly loud, a table that had a bunch of nerdy-looking kids with glasses not talking to each other, and everything in between.

It was funny in a way. Even in a totally different world, human sociology remained the same.

Julius just sat down and began eating his food. He was getting annoyed because his shoulder was constantly being jostled on both sides. Nobody had acknowledged his existence yet. The final straw was one he was trying to get some food into his mouth and one of the kids threw something from across the table, knocking into his plate, and making a mess.

Julius had enough. He got with his messy plate and was about to find another table to eat at when he sensed something. [Spatial Perception] had picked up someone, someone he was familiar with. There were so many students that it was hard to differentiate between them, but finally, he narrowed it down.

Off by the table of nobles, Julius noticed another first-year student with blonde hair and a radiant smile. Julius knew that face, he met him right before the incident at the mansion.

What was his name? Dillion right? No, not Dillion. What is it? Ah! Tristan, it was Tristan. I had completely forgotten about him.

Julius hadn’t cared at the time, the conversation between them hadn’t lasted more than a minute, but now he remembered. Tristan was his cousin and he had mentioned to Lukas that he was going to Goldencrest. How did Julius forget that?

Now he was at the same school with someone who might be able to recognize him. Someone who knew who he was.

The bright side was that Tristan barely met Julius and Julius had changed a lot over since then. He was much taller and had more muscle after his body transformation which was caused by [Kinetic Reinforcement]. Also, the last time Tristan saw Julius he had been wearing his signature blindfold, so Tristan wouldn’t have gotten a good look at his face.

What Julius was more worried about was whether Tristan and his father were a part of the plan. They left at an awfully suspicious time, right before the attack happened. However, if Tristan didn’t know about it, then he might even be an ally who could help Julius find out what happened. It might even be a blessing.

But what if it isn’t? What if Tristan and his father knew the entire time?

Julius didn’t stand there staring for very long, he needed some space to think. This made his whole situation much more complex than he had been planning. He has already begun to accumulate too many secrets and he had a feeling that once one thread was unraveled then the whole thing would come crumbling apart.