Path to Transcendence

Chapter 768: Not That Bad

Truthfully, he was pretty lucky. It was only due to his torso’s higher density that the limbs were the first to collapse from the pressure, and that collapse allowed the rest of the pressure to escape.

It easily could have been worse, he noted to himself.

That being said, he was quite excited. It wasn’t as much of a colossal failure as one might think just from seeing his current state. Sure, he had almost blown himself up again, but he had learned some valuable information.

For one, his void energy was actually quite stable if used correctly. Obviously, he hadn’t used it correctly that time around, but he was confident he could play around with it and find the “proper” method.

He was only worried about one thing…

He slowly glanced at the blood and pieces of himself scattered around the room.

What would Leander and Phoebe ask him if they saw this mess?

He worried for a few moments before he shrugged his shoulders. He'd make sure to clean up before they found him like this. For now, he had more pressing matters to focus on.

***

Turns out that his confidence wasn’t a hundred percent misplaced. His previous idea was actually the correct line of thought, and he was onto something. The issue was that progress was slow. The fact that he had blown himself up a couple dozen times in the past few hours was also the reason.

Furthermore, it didn’t help that his void energy caused a slight delay to his healing. It wasn’t that much, especially with his new healing skill overpowering the effects. But the slight impedance was noticeable to him.

He was also quite proud that he had only blown up his entire body four total times. All other instances were contained to his limbs or, in the more positive cases, only one or two limbs.

He was seriously onto something, though. He could feel it deep within his soul. His void energy was acting differently than usual. It had an excited hum to it he couldn’t properly describe. If he could compare it to anything, it was like shaking a can of soda and leaving it to sit without opening it.

It wasn’t exploding while it was inside his own body or under his control, but the second it wasn’t, it would explode outward.

That wasn’t the only change either. The void energy was mixing with his mana and aura in a way it had never done before. It had a fluid, physical quality that made him both surprised and excited. It made it easier to manipulate, but also much more dangerous.

He had just healed his limbs back from his recent failed experiment when he sensed the door to the chamber opening. He snapped his head to the door and cursed. He had cleaned some of the mess up with his aura, but he hadn’t been as thorough since he’d been planning to do a deep clean before he left the chamber.

Phoebe’s head popped through the door, a bright grin on her face, a vivid contrast to how she looked at him when they first met. However, that grin slid immediately from her face, and her nose scrunched up in disgust, and she gagged.

“What the hell!” she shouted, staring at the room in horror.

Julius grimaced and tried to think of how he was going to explain this to her.

***

Phoebe POV

Phoebe had a long day. For almost the entire day, she had been harassed by various elders and forced to attend meetings alongside Leander. This was why she hated coming back to the estate. She’d much rather stay at their private residence inside Dawnreach. Honestly, any city would have been preferable. Even if she had to stay in the slums.

These old folgies who stayed at the clan’s estate had nothing better to do with their day and always had to meddle with things they had no business meddling in. However, she could at least understand their concern.

Julius’s appearance was quite a complicated thing. Some were scared of Julius’s master, hoping that Julius hadn’t taken offense to Soren’s actions, and others feared Julius would demand an unreasonable amount of compensation.

However, the most troubling ones were the people who wanted to use Julius for their own purposes. Having a master like the Lord of the Shattered Throne meant Julius was a prime target for these cunning snakes. They would be nice at first, offering him gifts and words of affirmation.

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They would stroke Julius’s ego just as they had with Soren, in the hopes that he would help them out when they needed it. They didn’t really care about Julius or his desires. They cared only about their own matters and what Julius could do for them. If that meant tossing useless lip service and a few pretty gifts at him, then it would be well worth it to them.

She hated that it was commonplace in her clan. Clan Dawnfield was powerful, and she was proud to be a part of it. Most of the time at least. And to their credit, their scheming wasn’t even as bad as some of the other clans out there. She had met plenty of other people from clans throughout the years whose entire purpose seemed to be fostering relationships with powerful individuals.

But these same people wouldn’t even give a copper to someone they deemed useless or a waste of their time. It was hypocritical and shameless.

Elder Yuna had spent the last hour interrogating Phoebe about Julius. She wanted to know everything Phoebe knew about Julius. What kind of skills he had and what kind of temperament he had. Of course, Phoebe didn’t say much. She kept her answers simple and truthful.

She told her that Julius was a good person and was quite talented. Also that he wasn’t someone they should offend.

Truth be told, Elder Yuna wasn’t that bad. She was pretty influential within the clan. Her good looks and vast talent made her an obvious figure of power. However, the cronies who followed her were another thing entirely. They were the type of people she mentioned before. The ones who would lick boots if it meant they got something out of it.

Many of the other figures within the clan backed her in the hopes of gathering influence. It wasn’t official, but it was well known that a non-official faction had been created in support of Elder Yuna. They also followed her because she was a huge proponent of increasing the clan’s influence across the continent.

Many have been upset that Clan Dawnfield hasn't used its strength to gather more power and wealth. Even compared to other clans of similar influence, Clan Dawnfield stood above them.

Their relative strength and number of Tier 5s were astonishing. In power alone, they could compete with some of the more powerful sects. This wasn’t to say anything about the clan’s connections across various sects they had made over the years.

Many clan members were a part of some powerful sects.

Of course, this didn’t mean Elder Yuna was able to override the authority of people like her father, but considering she was heavily involved with the day-to-day operations of the clan, her words held considerable weight.

It was unfortunate that Julius was the focus of her attention. The woman didn’t seem to understand Julius's delicate nature or the status he held. Or at least that was Phoebe's opinion of the situation. She had no idea what Elder Yuna’s real plan was.

The woman was intelligent, so Phoebe couldn’t imagine that she would casually insult Julius or push him against them. But from the way she talked about Julius, Phoebe didn’t believe the woman properly understood Julius’s personality. Phoebe could have helped fix that, but she also didn’t want to overshare anything about Julius.

He had asked her to promise that she wouldn't do anything drastic if a clan member took adverse action against him unless it was truly ill-willed. Still… she was worried that someone might actually be stupid enough to go that far.

She was worrying about that when she opened the door to the training chamber to check on how he was doing. However, she immediately slammed her hand over her mouth and bit back the bile from rising from her throat.

The entire chamber smelled like iron and was covered in what looked like blood and small fragments of it.

“What the hell!” she exclaimed and swiftly shot her gaze straight to the only person occupying the room. At first, she had been worried when she saw all of the blood, but it wasn’t any more clear that he was fine. There wasn’t a single sign of injury on him.

So, where did the blood come from? She leveled a sharp gaze at him.

Julius was looking everywhere except her eyes as he twiddled his thumbs.

“What did you do?” she asked with a frown.

He flattened his lips. “I was experimenting,” he mumbled.

“Okay, that still does not explain why it looks like someone murdered a school of children in here,” she said flatly.

He didn’t answer and instead used a lot of aura to wipe down the mess covering the walls. Upon closer inspection, it even looked like he had cleaned some of it up already. Which begged the question: why was there still so much blood?

“Is this your blood?”

He still ignored her, which honestly answered her question just the same.

“So you are insane,” she finally said with a sharp frown.

He finally looked up at her. “It’s not that bad!” he argued.

She didn’t say anything, simply looking at the blood-covered walls and floor with a pointed stare.

He started to say something but must have thought better of it. Instead, he sighed and got back to cleaning. She wasn’t about to tell him that the room had a self-cleaning function either.

She simply gazed at him with a slightly uneasy feeling in her stomach. Thanks to context clues he'd given her, she gathered a few things. For one, he was used to hurting himself. Secondly, he had a way to heal from said damage.

Thirdly, she had dramatically underestimated just how often he was doing it. There was pushing oneself, and then there was this…

She knew he was helping her improve her technique and control of kinetic energy, but a bit of doubt slipped into her mind. What kind of person was she learning from? And did she want to emulate him?

It certainly didn’t match up with the pleasant personality she had come to know. Were the other elders right to worry about him? Because what kind of person did something like this?

However, she suddenly recalled how easily he had dismantled her during their spar and realized this might be the cost she would have to pay to get stronger.

That being said, as she looked around the bloodstained chamber, she couldn’t help but question if she was truly prepared for what she would need to do.