Path to Transcendence

Chapter 771: First Floor

He got on his knees, gave the little mounds of dirt a deep bow, and even left behind a few snacks on their graves to express his gratitude. He might not have acquired any new skills, but they had been very helpful to him and his experimentation. His void membrane had progressed far enough that it wasn’t so easily broken and was able to withstand interruptions from external forces.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t withstand the destruction his technique caused if it went out of control. The void energy was quite violent, and it tore apart the undead without remorse. So the least he could do was thank them for their service and time.

However, he realized he needed to get to the second floor. The first floor was fine and all, but Tier 3 monsters weren’t cutting it. He needed something with a little more danger behind it to truly push his technique over that last edge.

So after he paid his respects and got everything situated, he began making his way through the first floor. He didn’t waste any time either. He quickly found the right path and maneuvered his way through the ruins of what looked like a city, but it was hard to tell for certain because of the extensive damage.

There were many more undead he came across along the way, and he decided to train his stealth technique as well. That wasn’t going as well as his void technique, though. Part of the reason was that these undead didn’t really have great mana senses. Or rather, they didn’t have as good of senses as the previous undead he’d come across.

These ones seemed to rely more on tracking movement and force projections. That made sense given their use of kinetic energy, but it also meant that if he truly wanted to hide, he could siphon his own kinetic energy in a continuous cycle, not letting any of it leech outward.

For most people, avoiding this kind of perception skill would be harder. But for someone who used kinetic energy as Julius did, it was actually quite simple. He found hiding his aura and mana more challenging at the present moment.

He wondered if there was an easier way to hide his aura. As much as he enjoyed his ruinous aura and how powerful it was, the fact remained that it stood out quite a lot. He suspected many powerful individuals had similar issues. It was why a lot of the Tier 5s he’d come across weren’t able to completely hide the presence.

He probably could have bought an item, or Lily could procure him something, but he didn’t want to rely on it. He’d much rather be capable of doing it all on his own. He wasn’t a fan of relying on items. In his opinion, items were meant for food and to make it taste better, not to do things he could do himself with a little time and effort.

That said, he still worked on the stealth technique. He primarily focused on shrouding his ruinous aura from leaking out too much. But he also realized that anything he used to contain the aura was bound to fail eventually. It was simply in the nature of his aura.

He realized that it was better to repurpose the aura and use some of the residual traces to power something else. That way he’d only need to shroud a small portion of what was left over. Of course, that came with its own issues.

He didn’t really know what he could do with the excess aura at the moment. At least not something that wouldn’t output even more energy or make him even more noticeable.

He did have an idea, though. In typical Julius fashion, the idea wasn’t what people would call traditional. In fact, it was sort of the opposite.

His body was quite unique. It wasn’t anything like what a normal Tier 4 would have. In fact, his Ruinous Phoenix Body was something that he didn’t use to its utmost potential. However, his idea might change that.

The best way to keep his aura shrouded was, of course, to keep the aura as tightly enclosed to his skin as possible. However, he didn’t see a reason to limit it to that. Why not use his entire body?

When he said that, he meant he could directly channel the excess ruinous aura through his body. Truth be told, he'd already used a similar application of his body skill, but this would be different.

These new channels would be for the sole purpose of refining his body. As he said before, his body was special. It had the unique property of gradually refining itself continuously as he accumulated damage.

The only thing was that "gradual" really just meant slow as hell. He had almost been killed or had his entire body blown to pieces more times than he could count, and he could barely feel a difference in the refinement.

Either he wasn’t doing it correctly, or he needed to hurt himself even more. Perhaps even a mixture of both. So he was going to try something. By using his excess ruinous aura, he was going to artificially damage his own body to accelerate the rate of refinement.

At least that was his plan. It was still very much a work in progress. He doubted he would be able to figure it out immediately. It would take a lot of experimentation.

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He was in the middle of said experimentation when he came across a weird flickering of kinetic energy. He looked over at what looked like a pile of trash and broken buildings. He walked over and used some aura and kinetic energy to remove the debris.

What he saw was the tiny little tree the size of his waist. It had bright white branches and dark blue leaves, so dark they looked more black than blue. However, dangling on a limb of this tiny tree was an equally tiny fruit that looked like a blueberry that was speckled with silver glitter. It was only the size of a coin, but it radiated kinetic energy.

He already knew what it was and was tempted to pick it, but he told himself to be patient. He didn’t know if picking it would activate something, and he still wanted a fruit from the fourth floor. Not to mention, it looked small and had plenty of room to grow.

Deciding not to pluck it, he left it dangling on the branch. He gently stroked the leaves before leaving, continuing on his exploration.

He came across a few other trees like this. Some of them were bigger, and some smaller. But like the first one, he left them be.

As he made his way through the ruins and caverns, he finally felt a dense collection of presences up ahead. He quickly sent a brief pulse of perception down the dark hallway and sensed a large number of monsters gathered at what looked like a massive door.

He tapped his chin as he thought about what he wanted to do. His first reaction was to test more of his techniques on this group. But he quickly dismissed that idea. He had already realized that he wasn’t going to get much out of fighting these Tier 3s.

He didn’t sense any Tier 4s within this crowd of monsters. They were only Tier 3s, and so any risk to him was non-existent. Or at least, extremely low. They didn’t seem like powerful variations of the undead he’d come across either. They were pretty much the same ones he’d fought throughout this floor.

He took a few moments to contemplate his options before he came to a decision. He stepped out into the hallway and began to gather his mana with his palms shaped into a bowl. He pulled on it deeply, and it responded to his intent instantly. It pooled between his hands, and he quickly compressed it together.

The monsters had finally taken notice of him and were already running down the hallway, coming straight for him. He barely looked at them. Instead, he focused on his mana.

He drew on his core and pulled out a few wisps of his ruinous flames. They weren’t as strong as the ones from his crown, but that was to be expected. He felt his crown try to come out of his soul and help him out, but he gave it a gentle nudge, letting it know that he wanted to try something on his own.

It seemed disappointed at this and pouted within his soul. He reminded himself to do something later to appease it.

He started slowly as he fed his mana into these wisps of ruinous flames. And these flames devoured the mana like it was a starving beast. As it consumed the mana, the flames grew larger and more powerful. A destructive and oppressive feeling weighed down on him as he continued to compress his mana and these flames.

The flames turned bright white, flickering with hints of blue and red. Once he felt like he had gathered enough mana and flames, he took the ball of fire and pointed it in the direction of the incoming monsters.

He didn’t throw the ball. No, instead he pried open a very small opening within the sphere. The sudden outflow of flames caught him off guard, and it sprayed wildly, slamming into the walls and searing the nearby stone ruins.

He quickly got a handle on it, though, and made the opening a bit cleaner and a bit more even. Once he got that down, a thin stream of raging hot fire pierced towards the undead. It was only around the thickness of his finger, but it was unbelievably powerful.

It was like using a hose to flower a garden, but then you decide to press your thumb against the opening, condensing the spray into a thinner but faster stream. Only with this, the water was actually fire, and the garden wasn’t a bunch of flowers, but instead was a small army of skeletons trying to kill him.

The first row of undead didn’t stand a chance. The jet of fire cut through them like butter. Their hard skeletons tried to resist, but it was no use. The fire was much too powerful for a Tier 3 to handle, and Julius mowed down a couple dozen within a few seconds.

The monsters behind them didn’t fare much better. The stream of ruinous flames tore through them much the same. Only its intensity decreased a bit.

When he had finally cut down all of the approaching monsters, he closed the opening of the sphere and the stream died out. Only then did he examine the hallway and notice that many of them were still alive. Since the stream of fire had cut through their cores or removed their heads, they were still trying to crawl towards him.

That was the thing about the undead. Since they were already dead, they were persistent little buggers. He stared at the crawling mass of bones and looked down at the shrunken sphere of flames in his hands. He had put quite a bit of mana inside the orb, and there was still a decent amount inside.

He played around with the sphere again and this time he created a much larger opening. The flames shot out, though with much less force than beforehand. However, he expected that and gave the sphere a little squeeze with his willpower.

The orb deformed a little bit, like a half-empty water balloon, but a roaring wave of flames was released from it. There wasn’t as much penetrative power behind the flames, but that wasn’t really necessary. The flames were more than enough.

The ruinous flames barely needed any direction. They collapsed onto the maimed undead like a starving beast, consuming any remnant of mana they released. The death mana leaking from their cores and bodies was swiftly overwhelmed. In the matter of a few moments, nothing remained of them except for a few charred bones and ash floating in the air.

Seeing that the door was now clear of any monsters, he grinned and walked over to it. He gave it a quick examination before he pushed it open and found himself looking at a set of stairs leading him upwards of all places. He frowned but eventually shrugged and trudged up the steps to where he assumed the second floor was.