Path to Transcendence

After dealing with the trolls, he quickly retreated to the ravine before any trolls spotted him. He was still a little shaken at what he had done and hadn’t even taken the time to collect their cores.

Killing things with large explosions was normal for Julius, it made sense that big boom meant big damage. It was why most of the weapons in his old world were the exploding kind. Yet, for some reason, being able to slice through something so effortlessly had demonstrated how much power he had in his hands.

I can’t recall any invention from my old world that could slice through something that cleanly. Maybe only a diamond-edged blade or something fictional like a lightsaber, Julius thought to himself.

“Huh… a lightsaber.” He asked aloud with a contemplative look on his face.

He wondered if it would be possible to recreate a lightsaber. He had a fire affinity and a lightsaber should be made out of plasma so it might be possible. However, he would need to somehow get his fire that hot. Even when he had accelerated the movement of molecules to create that scary powerful blue [Firebolt], he still didn’t think that was close to enough heat to replicate a lightsaber. Eh, it doesn’t matter, he thought to himself. He put the silly thought aside, bookmarking it for a potential experiment in the future.

Going back to his original musings, Julius was still a Tier 1. Although he was able to reliably kill the Tier 3 trolls, he had to remind himself that he still had a long way to go. He also couldn’t let himself believe that he was able to take on any Tier 3 yet. The trolls were a good matchup against him. They didn’t have any long-range abilities and their movement speed was quite slow for their tier. The main thing that made them a real danger was their regenerative abilities. For most people, this would be extremely troublesome.

However, Julius had an unbelievable advantage when it came to damage output. There was no way a Tier 1 should be able to have enough power to effectively kill the troll before it was even able to heal. With that being said, due to his combination of skills, affinities, core, and knowledge from his old world, he was able to achieve this.

He couldn’t help but wonder how powerful a Tier 5 like his uncle was. He wasn’t able to appreciate or even sense the abilities they used during the assassination attempt at the mansion. But now that he had gotten a taste for real combat he couldn’t help but question how close he was to actually dying that night. The more he learned the larger the gap seemed to become.

The reality was that all those worries shouldn’t matter to Julius. He had larger problems staring at him in the face. Like his missing hand for one. He still hadn’t thought of a way to heal it yet. He knew the trolls could regrow limbs, he had seen it firsthand. So how could he achieve it?

The most promising options were either he advanced to Tier 2 and hope his Body Advancement fixed it on its own. Or he could evolve [Restoration] and hope there would be an option to regrow limbs similar to the troll's own skill.

However, until then, he would be stuck with a nub for the time being. It was annoying, but the pain no longer bothered him and he didn’t exactly need a hand to fight anyway.

When I think about it, the nub is just a smaller closed fist with no knuckles, Julius thought to himself as he tried to make himself feel better.

Julius was about over halfway to Tier 2 by now. He could feel the mana accumulating within his body strengthening his connection with it. The constant days of fighting and stress had hastened the process to an impressive level. But evolving [Restoration] seemed like it was the best choice at the moment.

For now, he wanted to try to create a prosthetic. [Arcane Construct] should be able to create some sort of hand-like construct with practice. Sitting down, he focused on his missing hand. He used his remaining hand as a template to create the prosthetic.

Unlike his attempts at creating realistic-looking constructs in the past, [Arcane Construct] was able to facilitate the task and helped adjust some of the finer details using his imagination as a base. His first attempt didn’t look that bad considering everything. It looked like a red smudge with five pointy sticks, resembling an eldritch horror’s hand from nightmares.

His second attempt was slightly better. The smudge had turned into a sphere and the sharp pointy sticks became more rounded. Now it looked more like the Michelin Man’s hand.

He kept on trying different versions, trying to get it to resemble his left hand as close as he could. After a while, he had lost count of the number of attempts and had finally created something that had the proper proportions and aesthetics of a hand. The main difficulty after he created it was the hand was a completely solid construct, which meant that while it looked like a hand, it wasn’t able to function like a hand. Julius couldn’t grab anything with the fingers, couldn’t bend them, or even make a fist.

The only way around this was to keep the construct in a semi-complete state, which allowed it to maintain some flexibility but required constant focus to keep it together. Otherwise, it would fall apart with the slightest lapse in concentration.

Julius kept experimenting with his construct throughout the night without stopping. By the time morning came around, he had decided on a construct that looked like a closed fist and was hardened so that it didn’t require any attention to keep it together. However, he also made sure whenever he wanted to grab something or maneuver the “fingers”, he could soften the construct so it was malleable. Then he would use pure manipulation to create five digits to imitate the capabilities of real fingers. It was quite challenging to pull off, but he could already feel himself getting the hang of it.

He was still planning on healing his hand. Even if he managed to heal his hand entirely by tomorrow it was still great practice and he had learned a lot from the experience. He had even gained a level in [Arcane Construct] during the night.

[Arcane Construct lvl 1 -> lvl 2]

He was hoping that by either tomorrow or the next day he would evolve [Restoration]. It was at level 14 and he could feel it only needed a nudge to tip it over the edge.

He had an idea of how he would evolve [Restoration] but he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. He didn’t think going out to fight trolls and purposefully getting hurt to heal over and over would do it. Julius had already felt that he was receiving diminishing returns on the skill progression by subjugating himself to the same injuries. It seemed like variety was essential for optimal progression. And he knew exactly what might do it.

Before he continued to think about it anymore he went through his workout regime for the day. It was somewhat awkward trying to hold a rock with one and a half hands but he made it work.

He pushed himself hard, trying to squeeze out every inch of growth as he could. [Restoration] was constantly active, healing himself over and over as he broke down his muscles throughout half a day of work. Unfortunately, [Restoration] didn’t level up. But [Kinetic Reinforcement] did.

[Kinetic Reinforcement lvl 13 -> lvl 14]

Now Julius had a single level left for both [Restoration] and [Kinetic Reinforcement] until they evolved.

He was still thinking of his little idea. It was crazy, but Julius truly believed that it could work. It was dangerous, yes, but when has that stopped him before?

He decided to get up and leave the ravine to clear his head. He headed toward the valley and found a small spot that overlooked the entire valley and just watched as the waterfall plummeted from the mountain spire. The sounds of crashing water relaxed him and he took a break from the pressure he had been putting himself under.

He had been pushing himself so hard, that he could feel himself starting to fray at the seams. He needed a respite like this so that he didn’t unravel. He couldn’t forget that there was a beauty to life other than gaining power. Strength was just a means to an end. Power without ideals was empty. But ideals without strength were just fantasies. He would need to have a balance of both if he wanted to live a fulfilling life.

For a while, he just sat on an overhang, feet dangling over the edge as he enjoyed the view, doing nothing. No mana manipulation, no training, he just enjoyed the tranquility. It was moments like this when he missed his old world. While it wasn’t as exciting as this new one, it was peaceful. He didn’t have to worry about a colossal grey monster trying to smash his face in or some sort of monster stalking him in his sleep. It was boring and predictable.

Julius was just lazing around for a while but then when he looked up at the sky something caught his eye. He noticed black streaks spreading across it. It was almost as if the sky was fracturing like a glass pane. It was subtle, that was why he hadn’t noticed it before, but it was definitely spreading.

Is this from the effects of the overflow? Was the entire rift going to collapse with everything inside of it? Julius had no idea.

It seemed like the world wasn’t going to give him the option to not go through with his idea. He was much more aware that he was on a time crunch and couldn’t afford to waste any more time. He got up, dusted himself off, and headed back to the ravine.

Once he got back, he sat himself down and created a flame above his left hand. Julius paused for a bit, thinking of what he was going to do. He was confident that he would be able to evolve [Restoration] without resorting to these kinds of methods. But how much time would be wasted while he did that? Too much, Julius decided.

With a resigned sigh, he turned the flame over and pressed it against his right arm, searing his skin. Julius clenched his teeth and groaned from the pain. His skin was boiling from the heat, blisters already forming as [Restoration] was active at full speed.

This was his not-so-good idea. Self-mutilation was not something he wanted to resort to but there weren’t many other ways he could pressure [Restoration]. When he fought trolls, most of his injuries were one-offs. He would break or fracture a bone, but he wasn’t subjected to a consistent source of damage like a fire. He was also able to activate [Savage Dance] more freely. The restrictions of the skill activation had lowered as he leveled it up. This helped a lot and allowed him to ignore the worst of the pain. That was why he had decided it was worth taking the risk, even though it had a chance of not working.

He continued to burn himself but slowly ramped up the intensity as he got used to the pain. At this point, he had enshrouded his entire right arm with fire. [Restoration] was an amazing skill, he could feel his flesh being healed as it was being destroyed. He could also feel the skill was almost consuming the energy from the flames to increase its healing. It was fascinating.

However, he still didn’t receive a notification even after several minutes of his self-inflicted torture. It would seem he needed to increase the intensity even more. This time he concentrated the fire, making it only as small as his fist but the strength increased exponentially.

The pain was starting to become almost unbearable at this point. However, to his surprise, it was the other things that he would look back on this day with disgust. Like the smell of his fat dripping from his arm perfuming as it hit the flames, or the sound of his skin crackling before it turned into ash. It was revolting, to say the least.

He tuned it all out. The pain and other sensations, he just hid inside of himself waiting for it to be over.

He didn’t know how long it had been, but eventually, he was distantly aware of a notification.

[Restoration lvl 14 -> lvl 15]

Julius immediately dissipated the flames and healed his arm completely, albeit still missing a hand. There weren’t any more burns, but the skin on his arm still showed scars from his intense treatment of it. Pale cracks winded around his entire forearm, looking like a spiderweb. However, he didn’t regret it. He might have if it didn’t work, but it did.

In his years living in this world, he had come to learn that he would be rewarded for putting himself in danger. The more dangerous and stupid the risk was, the greater the reward.