Path to Transcendence

Chapter 774: Unraveling

It turns out that the aura lock was already falling apart. Not that surprising, considering the person who had been bonded to it was dead. But that also made his task easier, so after two hours of work, he finally broke it open.

To his bewilderment, he was even offered a skill for this.

Would you like to learn [Ruinous Unraveling]?

This wasn’t the first time he had broken into a ring, but it was certainly the first time he had been offered a skill related to it. Though, to be fair, he hadn’t broken into a ring of this quality before. Perhaps that was the reason why he was finally offered a skill.

The skill itself sounded pretty good too. It sounded like a skill that would come in handy for a lot of things. It just sucked that he had already accepted his thirteenth skill. He wouldn’t have minded getting it just so he could play with it.

He also reminded himself that he could still use the technique without the skill. At least [Pseudo Void Manipulation] was going to help him merge [Void Step] and [Void Strike]. For now, this new skill didn’t seem like it was going to help him all that much.

That being said, he would keep it in mind should he have a bunch of other skill slots open.

He also took the time to look inside the ring, using his senses to scan the items inside.

He wasn’t expecting that much, to be honest. The rogue had clearly been on a dangerous mission, and Julius didn’t expect someone to carry everything they owned inside their ring. But who knew? Maybe the rogue had nobody else to pass his wealth or stuff down to?

And unfortunately, that seemed to be the case. Sure, there were a large number of items inside the ring. But the space inside wasn’t nearly as large as the ring he owned. Which was surprising since the man was a Tier 5. But then again, Julius paid a lot of money for the ring. Even if one had the money, he doubted many were willing to spend it on a storage ring when another was more than sufficient for most cases.

Julius shifted through the large collection of potions first. He was quite surprised by the sheer number of potions. The potions alone must have cost a fortune. He saw at least three dozen healing potions and almost double the amount of mana potions.

They were all high quality too. He could sense the pure mana radiating from the vials. Considering they were for a Tier 5, Julius suspected that each mana potion would have been enough to fill most of Julius’s own massive mana pool.

He nodded to himself happily. He didn’t really run out of mana all that often. Or, if he did, there was typically another larger issue to worry about. But the mana potions would be very useful.

The healing potions were still valuable, but he didn’t think they would be more effective than his own healing skill or Drasil’s healing magic. He was much more interested in the mana potions.

Other potions were there as well, neatly stored in a case. There weren’t as many as the healing or mana potions, but some of them were quite unique and clearly meant for specific situations.

He took one of them out and examined it. Each had a label and a short description on the bottle. This one was called a Crystal Mind Tonic. It would apparently cleanse one’s mind of external influences such as mind- and fear-based attacks.

Another one was called a Deathveil Potion. This one was supposed to suppress any signs of life from the person who drank it. Julius didn’t know how effective it was supposed to be or what kind of use would require it, but he put it back inside the potion case. Honestly, if he needed to pretend to be dead, he believed it would be more effective if he actually just died.

He also spotted one that made him chuckle. It was a swirling red vial of viscous liquid and was called an Emberward Draught. It was supposed to protect one from fire-aspected skills and imbued the consumer with a high level of thermal resistance.

It would have certainly been helpful in the fight where Julius had torched him to death. Too bad the man hadn’t been able to drink it.

Julius smiled, satisfied with the potions, and quickly stored them inside his dimensional soul space. There was a lot more room inside of it now that he had evolved his soul, and so he wasn’t as shy about throwing stuff inside.

He then took a look at the other stuff inside the ring. There was a decent amount of gold, but not as much as he hoped. The man likely had some of it stored elsewhere. Perhaps at a bank or other organization. He knew that the Adventurer’s Guild offered similar services to some of its members for a fee.

The weapons inside were mildly interesting. They were mostly daggers and other forms of short blades, but they all seemed of decent quality. Nothing like the red dagger he had confiscated previously, but still quite nice. Perhaps he would sell them or even use them as reference for his own crafting projects.

Despite what Thorik said about his talent for making things, he wasn’t going to give it up. Even if it was only to spite the smelly drunk. He would still do it.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Speaking of the red dagger, he hadn't been brave enough to take it out again. It was a vicious little thing, and maybe when he felt a bit braver, he would examine it more closely.

There wasn’t much else inside the ring that caught his eye. A few random items were sprawled across it, along with an alarming amount of rations. He didn’t know why, but some people decided to eat those rations when there were rings out there that helped preserve food.

For goodness sake, that was one of his main priorities when he bought his new one. He didn’t know if this one had a similar function, but seeing the number of rations, he was hoping it didn’t. Otherwise, he really questioned the mental state of the guy he killed. The poor sap was surviving on shitty, cardboard-like rations. It was no wonder he died too easily. His stomach must have been glad for the mercy.

He was about to end his search when he spotted a few books tossed into the corner. He’d already checked for any papers or evidence that might help him learn more about the Conclave, but these books appeared to be actual books.

He took them out and inspected them closely. The one that caught his eye was titled ‘Ways of the Whispering Shadows’. It had a shocking amount of mana coming from it, and from the looks of it, it was a technique manual of some kind.

Curious, he opened it up, and a dense cloud of shadows leaped from the pages and surrounded his face. He let out an undignified yelp and snapped the book shut instantly. The shadows clung to his face for a few moments, but they slowly slithered back into the book.

He shivered and stared at the book with a lot more caution. Why did this guy have so many creepy items? First the knife and now this book?

Drasil must have heard the commotion and popped his head over his thigh to look at the book. The spirit took one look and scowled.

“What? You don’t like it?”

Drasil glared at the book briefly before turning his nose up.

“You think I shouldn’t use it?”

Drasil looked at him and whistled.

“Oh… you just think it looks like it tastes bad,” Julius said with a befuddled frown.

Drasil cooed and nodded firmly.

Julius tilted his head. “Well, books aren’t for eating, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

Drasil whistled.

“No, I have never eaten a book. What are you talking about? When have you ever seen me eat a book?”

Drasil shrugged and cooed.

“That wasn’t a book; it was just a fancy pastry that was decorated like a book. Either way, don’t worry, nobody is going to eat this book,” Julius said, pinching his nose.

Drasil nodded happily, satisfied by this explanation.

Julius shifted his attention back to the book in question. It actually felt very similar to the manual from Tezuko Willow. Speaking of that manual, he hadn’t really checked up on the third chapter yet. He had been distracted with other things and, to be honest, he found that life mana wasn’t exactly the best thing to use for enhancement, at least for his specific combination of abilities.

He had other things to use, and while the technique was a great reference tool for balancing both his life mana and his ruinous aura, he didn’t know if the technique was the best use of his time. However, he admitted that he was curious about the next techniques and how he could use them to control his ruinous aura.

Then again, he'd just gained [Lord of the Dying Sun], so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to see how the technique worked with his new body. Perhaps there was something he had missed. Some untapped potential that he could dig into now that he had improved.

He was also a little nervous about how much harder his ruinous aura would be to control now that he had evolved his soul again. That was something to consider as well. He reminded himself that he should really take a look at the third chapter of the manual when he got the chance.

He would just add it to the very, very long list of stuff he left unfinished. It was sort of his thing at this point. He picked something up, but sometimes it was forgotten, or at least forgotten for a long time.

Feeling a lot more prepared, he slowly opened up the book once again. This time the shadows didn’t make him jump, and instead he let it pull him into its pages.

He felt the shadows start to weave themselves into his mind. It wasn’t exactly sinister, but he definitely controlled how much it was able to move around inside his noggin. He had learned too many scary things about mind magic when he practiced with Lily and was on guard for any tricks.

It was only when he was certain the shadow tendrils weren’t doing anything too bad that he allowed himself to get pulled into the dreamscape.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a dark chamber that was gently lit by candlelight. The flames flickered on the walls, casting soft shadows around the chamber.

He immediately recognized similarities between this manual and the one Tezuko made, but it was clearly not the same. For one, he didn’t feel like he had any control over this body. In fact, this felt like more of a vision than an actual dreamscape like the one he experienced when he entered the other manual.

He didn’t mind it, though, and instead patiently watched as the body he was in started to move around the room. It was as if each step they took made them sink deeper into the shadows. Their presence slowly dwindled down to almost nothing. It wasn’t so much as vanishing, but it was melding into the background with the shadows in such a way that Julius barely was able to notice, and he was the one inside the body doing this.

He kept watching for another minute until the body began to slow its movements. It wasn’t until they had fully paused that the vision started to shift. He felt himself being dragged from the illusion and found himself back in the real world.

He blinked several times as the disorientation faded and his mind ran wildly.

He wondered if the person he had killed obtained this technique. It was hard to tell because Julius didn’t even give him the chance to use it. He had snatched them up in a bear hug and set them ablaze. So even if they had it, they never got the chance to use it.

However, if they had, Julius wondered how the fight might have gone differently. The technique seemed pretty complicated and powerful. Even when he looked through the body of the person using it, he could barely feel what they were doing or where they were. They blended into the shadows of the world so seamlessly that it left him slightly breathless.

Even his spatial senses couldn’t pick up much.

He was suddenly very glad about his decision not to let the rogue get away. He had a feeling that if he had, it would have been much harder to find him afterward.