Path to Transcendence

His team went through the rest of the rift without much issue. Each one of them was responsible and understood their roles well. Nobody tried to do too much and were all supportive of each other. That was something that was rare in a newly formed team, Julius remembered that much from his previous life even without magic.

He wished the other group of girls were the same. However, they weren't. He almost felt bad for Mitchell. The poor man was rubbing his forehead so much Julius was worried the man might give himself a blister on his forehead.

After the first battle, the girls constantly bickered with each other. For being such obvious friends, he would have thought they would have worked better with each other. Instead, they did the opposite.

In fact, the first real injury didn't come from them getting hit by a goblin, but instead one of them hit their frontline in the back with a bolt of white mana. It was apparently strong enough that the frontliner's defense buckled and she then took a stab through the shoulder from a goblin. She went down with a loud cry and would have been stabbed again if not for Mitchell intervening.

It seemed that actually getting hurt had surprised the girl. Julius suspected that this was the first real-time she had gotten hurt in a fight. Which wasn't that surprising considering that she and her friends were most likely nobles who had been treated well their entire lives.

Luckily, Mitchell seemed to be carrying some healing potions on his person. Healing potions were a weird thing. They had varied effectivenesses on wounds. Some healed a larger amount but over a longer period of time. Whereas some healed fast, but not as much.

Since the girl was only Tier 2, the effects of the potion were quite good. The stab wound healed over pretty quickly.

Healing potions were normally made by life affinity users who specialized in alchemy. Without the life affinity, the cost of making a healing potion was much higher. The largest issue was that as one advanced, the more difficult it was to get healed by a potion as did limitations on how many potions one could consume in a time period.

Julius recalled a book he had read recently about this phenomenon. It was called potion sickness. Normally a person could only consume one or two potions consecutively before they would be longer effective. If someone tried to ingest more than what their body could handle, their body would be poisoned by the unfamiliar mana.

It wasn't just healing potions either. Other potions such as mana replenishing and stamina recovery potions had similar side effects. For overconsuming healing potions, the book stated that organ failure, decomposition of the flesh, and/or blood corruption were typical.

This downside was somewhat mitigated for healing mages. Healing skills had a unique function that allowed the channeled life mana to adapt to the patient's own mana signature. Reducing the potential side effects of frequent healing.

However, it was also highly dependent on what type of healing skill one had. Many healers, didn't have a sufficiently advanced skill that was able to do this. These types of healers were relegated to more benign and less fatal wounds. Often seen as doctors and healers for the regular folk, kind of like a pediatrician or a family doctor.

Julius was very thankful that his skill didn't seem to have this issue. Although, the fact that his skill was primarily a self-healing skill probably helped a lot with that. The life mana he was healing himself with was already his, to begin with.

Soon after the girl got hurt, they all began to head back. It wasn't just the injury for this decision, the group of girls ended up running out of mana as well. It wasn't a shock since they had been wastefully throwing out mana, but it was still slightly disappointing. He and his team all felt like continuing.

Then again, there was always another day. They wouldn't delve every day but now that they had gotten further into the year it would be much more frequent. Something that Julius was looking forward to as well. He even had a new team that he had been enjoying so far.

***

Joshua POV

"How was your first official delve?" His cousin, Janet asked him as she sat next to him. She had a teasing smile on her face, she always treated him like he was still ten years old. He didn't particularly mind it, but he acted like it did.

He gave her an annoyed look. "It actually went pretty well. I am happy with the team I managed to gather," he told her.

"Oh really? That's a nice surprise. I remember when I was a first-year. My team was a cobbled-together mess, everyone fought with each other. We did a better job hurting each other than the monsters ever did," Janet admitted.

Joshua chuckled at that, remembering the group of girls his team had been saddled with. He could easily imagine his cousin among that group. She had matured a lot over the years, the previously entitled princess attitude was no longer as bad. She still had her moments, but compared to when they were younger, it was a massive difference.

"I'm still surprised that you managed to convince that beastkin boy to join your group. Beastkin students are normally lone wolves, they prefer to prove themselves without anyone else helping them," she commented.

He gave her a conceding nod. "I know, I am actually a little surprised as well. I only asked because I didn't see the harm of it. The worst he could say was no. However, I am very glad that he accepted. Polux is a very talented fighter and a surprisingly good teammate. He works well with us," he said to her.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"What about that new friend of yours? What was his name? Jackson? Or was it Justin? Too many J names, in my opinion, it gets confusing," his cousin said with a shake of her head.

"It's Julius. And yes, he did very good as well," Joshua said.

"That's good. I remember you telling me your concerns about him joining your team," she mentioned.

Joshua shrugged his shoulders. "He gives it his all and doesn't get in anyone's way. He has a very good sense for combat." He wasn't exaggerating to his cousin either. While Joshua had mentioned his previous worries about someone like Julius holding his team back, he no longer had the same thoughts.

One might think Joshua had asked Julius to join because they were friends, but his cousin knew better. Joshua learned to keep his personal feelings away from his responsibilities. However, he was glad he extended the invitation to Julius. The fellow first-year was a cunning and scrappy fighter.

Joshua was honestly pleasantly surprised at how well Julius managed the fight. He observed the entire team and how they worked together, so he had a good idea about the other's abilities. For Julius, the boy was never out of place. He was always right where he needed to be, he was never caught off guard, and was there when someone else needed a hand. It didn't matter that Julius didn't have as much explosiveness as the others, he did his job well.

"By the way, I forgot to mention that Julius managed to convince Tia Wellence to join the team," he offhandedly told Janet. He had already discussed with her how the Wellence scion had declined his offer previously. So it was to his immense astonishment to see Julius walk back with her in tow. Tia was undoubtedly very talented, her crowd-control abilities were top-notch and a saving grace for their team.

"Oh really?" Janet asked in an impressed tone. "How did he manage to convince her when you couldn't? Is he a handsome fellow?" She asked with a teasing smirk.

Joshua scratched his head. "I don't really know if I am being honest. I only caught some of the conversation, but it seems that Tia was interested in one of Julius's older friends."

"He's friends with some upperclassmen? Do you know their names?" She asked interestingly.

"No, I haven't asked nor have met them yet. He did mention that they were fourth-years though," he told her distractedly, not noticing her interest.

He couldn't help himself as his mind started to wander about how they could utilize Tia's abilities better. They were potent skills and he didn't think they were using them to the fullest extent.

I might want to ask her and brainstorm some ideas with the team later on. Maybe we can get together in the library or something to strategize. Everybody seemed to get along pretty well, so suspect that this team won't just be a one-off thing, he thought to himself.

He was so immersed in his own head that he didn't notice his cousin look at him with a weird look and a contemplative look on her face.

***

Julius POV

Julius and Lily were alone, sitting on a mat of mana he created for them. Neither of them said anything and just enjoyed the view for the time being.

He was stalling and he knew it. He had asked Lily out here for a specific reason, but he didn't know how to go about beginning. Instead, he just sat there awkwardly, nervously tapping his fingers.

Finally, it seemed that Lily had enough of feeling his anxiety and spoke up. "Why are you so nervous? You're not normally like this?"

He sighed and turned his head to look at her. "This past weekend I had an interesting encounter."

She gazed at him with an assessing frown. "What do you mean by 'interesting'?" She asked.

"I met some people who had some sort of association with Duke Greyson. I don't really know what they were doing for House Greyson, but I have some documents I wanted to show you," he said to her softly. He then took out the collection of torn-up paper that had he managed to stash away from the guy's ring and passed them over to Lily.

Lily took them from him with an interested expression and gave them a quick lookover. Eventually, she turned back to Julius. "Are you sure that these people were working directly for Duke Greyson?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure why?" He asked confused.

"Duke Greyson is normally very secretive. He doesn't really handle his House's affairs anymore. It's mainly his advisers and other members that control the operational side of things. So it's kind of important to distinguish if this was Duke Greyson or his family," Lily explained calmly.

Julius gave her a confused look. "Duke Greyson doesn't handle his own house? So his family members are able to just make decisions for him? That seems like it might lead to some potential problems."

"It does. But Duke Greyson is currently trying to advance to Tier 7. He is more focused on his own progress than simple politics at the moment. I doubt that many of the recent movements House Greyson has been doing these past years have been under his direct orders," Lily commented.

Julius froze at that. Did that mean that the attack at the estate might not have even been under Duke Greyson's orders but because someone in House Greyson was feeling a bit too ambitious? Has his ire been directed at the right person to start with?

He shared his uncomfortable realizations with Lily.

"I'm not sure. The attack on the Hyperius's Estate was a secretive plan. Even after looking into it myself and asking my father, there hasn't been a lot of information coming out of the Valorbury region. However, that also gives some information in itself."

"Like what?" Julius asked anxiously.

"Like it is very likely that many of the remaining members of House Hyperius either were a part of the plot or were successfully bought off. Otherwise, there is no way that there isn't any information leaving the region," Lily said gently, laying a hand on his back, afraid that her words would upset him.

She didn't have to worry on that front. Julius already knew that many of the elders were a part of the betrayal, but he didn't think it extended that far. He still didn't understand the full political meaning behind the betrayal either. Something he had kind of forgotten to investigate, he had been so busy with other things.

"And the documents?" He asked her hopefully.

She gave him a sad smile. "I'm sorry, but there's not much to go on with them. I can only determine that many supplies have been coming and going from Heston. And that's not unusual considering how many other Houses do similar things. I can look more into it if you want," Lily offered graciously.

Julius gave her a small smile and nodded at her, showing his appreciation of her offer. Then he frowned. He had been hoping that the documents he found would shed some light on what House Greyson had been doing.

It was frustrating. He wanted to place the blame on Duke Greyson, but now it seems that the Duke might not have had anything to do with what happened to him. It made him feel weirdly lost now that he didn't have anyone to aim his anger at.