Path to Transcendence

Chapter 762: Small World

Just a day ago, Julius had been dreading the meeting, thinking it would be more of a pain in the ass than it was worth. However, he was proven wrong. Not only was Clan Dawnfield apologetic, but they were going out of their way to make things right.

Lily and he already suspected they would try to curry his favor, but this turn of events was outside their expectations. He didn’t even need to bring up his desire to improve his kinetic affinity. Rather, it was Leander who brought it up first.

They had somehow gotten their hands on a report about Julius’s affinities; he didn’t know if he should be alarmed about how they got it. Fortunately, it was outdated information. It didn’t mention his fire or life affinities, which had increased to excellent. This led him to believe that this report was from when he was attending Goldencrest.

As far as he knew, this was the last time he got his affinities tested. That or someone managed to analyze them during the tournament with some kind of specialized skill. There were a lot of eyes on him during that time, and he wouldn’t be surprised if some organizations did some of their own deep investigation into his abilities.

He’d done a pretty good job at keeping all of his most valuable skills and techniques hidden during that time though, so he wasn’t too worried. Not to mention how many of his skills had evolved since then. Whatever report they got was no longer up to date.

Not that Leander or Clan Dawnfield seemed interested in doing anything nefarious with it. They seemed more concerned about using it to make their offerings more appealing.

Julius tapped the table softly as he contemplated all of Leander’s words. He’d let the man do most of the talking, letting him make generous offer after generous offer.

He’d already offered Julius an exorbitant amount of money, but he had so much wealth at the moment that he wasn’t the least bit tempted. He was also offered several powerful treasures. One of them was even a powerful fire treasure that would give him an advanced form of fire.

That in itself was extremely alluring if not for the fact that he essentially already had one. His ruinous flames might not technically be considered an advanced flame yet, but that was more due to his imperfect Ruinous Phoenix Core than anything else.

He needed to cultivate the core a little more before he could use the flames at will. Currently, his crown was doing most of the heavy lifting, converting his mana and aura into ruinous flames. They were certainly on par with advanced flames, though, so he hadn’t been too concerned about it.

Once again, it was mainly his Seed of Authority that was holding him back. His body had continuously been refined due to this special core, but because the seed hadn't grown as much as his other abilities, he couldn’t quite use the flames it naturally generated as he pleased.

Though if he was being honest, it wasn’t like his progress with his seed was that bad. His seed has likely grown faster and with more stability than most Tier 4s. If they heard him complaining, they would probably spit on him.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t comparing himself to your typical Tier 4. He was comparing himself to people like Lily, who had perfect affinities and bloodlines that helped them.

That being said, it wasn’t like he didn’t have options to help increase his progress. That was why Leander's offer to help improve his kinetic affinity was the most alluring thing he proposed to Julius.

“So what do you think?” Leander finally said after a few moments of silence; he looked a bit anxious, though. The man’s aura didn’t show it, but the frequent glances at Lily when he thought Julius wasn’t looking surely did.

As for Julius, he continued to tap the table slowly, deep in thought. He peeked over and looked at Soren, who was sitting a little ways away with Leander’s sister. They weren’t really a part of the conversation and were waiting for them to finish.

Soren’s leg was tapping away at the floor with enough force that Julius was surprised a small hole hadn’t been burrowed into the pavement. Phoebe didn’t seem as nervous, but she was looking at Julius intensely enough that it made him slightly uncomfortable.

He finally gazed up at Leander. “I want to hear more about your offer to increase my kinetic affinity.”

Leander nodded as if this was expected. “Of course. The method is actually quite straightforward. We managed to find a rift many years ago and discovered a resource inside that improves one's kinetic affinity when consumed. It’s less effective after the initial consumption, but it should be more than enough to advance your affinity to excellent at the very least.

“And this would require me to enter this rift myself?” Julius asked curiously.

“Indeed.”

“Why not just take some of the resource out of the rift? Why the need to enter the rift at all?”

Leander shook his head. “Unfortunately, the treasure loses its effectiveness the moment it exits the rift. We’ve tried to harvest it for years and have spent an exorbitant amount of money on specialized containers hoping to maintain its effects outside the rift, but nothing has worked so far.”

“That’s a shame,” Julius noted with a heavy sigh.

Leander pressed his lips tightly. “Oh, you have no idea how frustrated our clan’s elders and merchants have become over the years. If we managed to find a way to harvest the treasure, we could have sold it for a lot of money or even offered the Shattered Winter School to buy it exclusively.”

Julius nodded. He was sure that Cain would have agreed to that. From what the man said, kinetic treasures were already very rare. Ones that improved affinities would have been even more valuable.

“What kind of treasure is it?” he asked, interested in what kind of treasure could achieve these effects but couldn’t be taken outside the rift.

“Sadly, I cannot tell you. I am limited to the details I can share. All I can tell you is that the treasure doesn’t cause any long-term side effects or impair future development.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Long-term?” he pressed, noting the slight detail.

Leander scrunched his nose as if recalling something unpleasant. “The experience directly after consuming the treasure is quite… undesirable.”

“Painful?” Julius guessed.

“Extremely.”

“But it works?”

“Absolutely. We’ve only had a few cases where it hasn’t worked. But that was because of other complicated circumstances not related to the effectiveness of the treasure.”

“How long will it take?” Julius asked.

“The total length is up to you, but we have already prepared a rift access slot for you. Taking into consideration travel time, I would say anything between a week and up to a month.”

“A month?”

“The rift is a little dangerous, so the time frame is very unpredictable."

“How dangerous?”

Leander furrowed his brows. “We often use it as a trial for our Tier 3s who are looking to advance to Tier 4. But the rift itself is Tier 4, and when we do this, we make sure a small group of Tier 4s protects the trial participants. We have mapped out the rift to control the level of danger and the number of monsters, but as you well know, rifts are unpredictable, and accidents happen. Even after one consumes the treasure to increase their affinity, the rift is still a great place to train and test oneself. The monsters are quite… unique.”

Julius tilted his head curiously. “Unique how?”

Leander shook his head. “I can’t let you know that until we enter the rift, but rest assured you should be able to handle them no problem.”

Julius grumbled under his breath. He would have liked to know more information. But then again, he was probably going to accept this offer regardless. A few weeks or a month sounded like a long time, but honestly, it wasn’t that bad. Not when he had the chance to increase his kinetic affinity. He’d always known that doing this would be much harder than his fire or life affinities.

He wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. He also somewhat trusted Leander. So far, the man had seemed honest and straightforward. It also helped that he attended the Shattered Winter School. While Julius had only been there for a short while, he still enjoyed his time there.

The time he spent with Galten, Arthur, Einar, and Kora had been fun. He even missed Bilbo and his antics.

“It sounds like this is a wonderful opportunity for Julius, but I hope this won’t be the only thing Clan Dawnfield is offering him as compensation for this little fiasco,” Lily suddenly interrupted. She had been sitting next to Julius quietly, using her abilities to gauge Leander’s truthfulness as well as his emotions.

He was a Tier 5, so it was a little more complicated to get a true sense of his mind, but she would be able to sense anything too noticeable. But she hadn’t sensed any deception or hostility so far.

But it would seem she wanted to speak up and make sure that Julius got the most of this deal as possible. Not just an improvement to his affinity.

Julius hid a grin when he saw Leander’s eyes twitch slightly and stop himself from glaring in Soren’s direction. “No, of course not! We are fully prepared to offer whatever is needed to ensure this matter is handled as pleasantly as possible for him.”

Julius silently thanked Cain. He didn’t really get to experience the benefit of having a master, but it was nice to be backed by someone who inspired fear across the entire continent.

***

Soren POV

He’d never felt as humiliated and embarrassed in his entire life. Not only was he thrashed so badly that he was required several days of recovery, but he was forced to apologize to the person who thrashed him.

After he recovered, he’d been tempted to report this to the Nine Peaks Sect, but quickly thought better of it. The sect would have been more likely to punish him than to address the situation.

However, his clan was another story. With him being adopted into the main branch due to his affinity and bloodline, he’d been graced with a lot of privileges from the clan’s elders. Many of them showered him with praise and gifts, understanding that he could be the next clan head in a few decades. The current patriarch had nine children of his own, but only about half of them inherited the stellar affinity, and of those, only two inherited the cherished bloodline.

It would have been quite enough under normal circumstances, but both Cedric and Kara didn’t have much interest in the clan. Cedric was too busy fooling around and wasting his talent away. Whereas Kara was off exploring the continent, trying to advance to Tier 6, and she had no interest in the clan.

While it was still likely one of Patriarch Acturus’s other children would inherit the title, Soren was adopted to strengthen the bloodline and had a decent chance to claim the title if he proved himself.

Yet, somehow in the span of a couple of weeks, he managed to erase almost all of his chances of becoming patriarch. All because of a random teen he came across in the streets.

To make matters worse, when he arrived, Lord Varian had been the one waiting for him. It wasn’t that big of a secret within the clan, but Lord Varian had almost as much influence as Patriarch Acturus when it came to influence.

That’s what happened when you were the clan’s most powerful member other than a few old monsters who had retired so long ago that nobody really knew if they were still alive.

How was he supposed to know the guy was some sort of prodigy apprenticed to one of the continent's most powerful Tier 6s? He didn’t even know who Cain Steelborn was until he was screamed at for several hours. It got even worse when he learned that Varian had supposedly owed the man a life debt.

Soren was told in no uncertain terms what he was supposed to do, and if he had any issues with it, they would shove him into a cell for the next decade until he learned his lesson.

Hence why he’d apologized to Julius almost a dozen times in the past hour.

Even after they left the meeting, Soren wasn’t safe from Leander’s wrath.

It was only when they were safely back in their carriage that the man’s polite expression turned into one of ire.

“You are unbelievably lucky that Julius isn’t as vengeful or spiteful as others.”

Soren didn’t even look up; he continued to stare at the hem of his robes, holding back his tongue. No matter how strong Julius’s master was, he didn’t see a reason why someone like Leander, a powerful Tier 5 in his own right, was acting so subservient to a Tier 4.

“You still don’t understand, do you?” Leander said with a growl and forcibly lifted Soren’s head up with kinetic energy so that he could stare directly into his eyes.

Soren swallowed nervously. “Understand what?”

“If he had asked for me to cut off your limbs, I would have done so without a second thought.”

Soren's face twisted up. “You wouldn’t dare go that far.”

“I would, and I had permission to. Your death was the only thing that wasn’t on the table. Anything else would have been fair game. And taking into consideration what actually happened, not that bullshit story you came up with, you should be glad we would have done that much,” Leander said with a firm press of his aura.

Leander was normally pretty composed, but not right now; he wasn’t.

After making sure his point was made, Leander finally leaned back and recalled his aura. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“Just be glad that Julius said he wouldn’t tell Master Cain. From what we heard, he and his wife adore young Julius. If he found out, I doubt the entire clan would be able to stop that force of nature if he decided to wipe you from existence, much less Master Freya if she chose to join.”

Soren let out an unsteady breath and was suddenly very nervous at the thought of Julius telling his master all about what had happened. As much as he had heard about Cain Steelborn, the rumors behind The Saint of Winter were just as terrifying.