Path to Transcendence

Now that he knew that she was actually Grace, a fact that was still taking time to fully grasp inside of his small brain. He felt much more comfortable showing her some of his true strength.

Even though she had hidden a pretty big secret from him, he didn't blame her. In fact, he was impressed at how well she did it. He could probably take some notes from her.

He also trusted her, as weird as that sounded, he still trusted her. After all, she was still Grace and someone he had been learning to trust as they knew each other longer. He felt pretty confident that the girl he met at the library every day was the real Reinera, not the pretty performance she put on in front of the rest of their classmates.

Now that his head had cooled and his frustration abated, he felt kind of guilty. He had been about to leave her at the drop of a hat. While he didn't know it was Grace, just the fact that he now knew it was and he had been about to leave her, left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He quickly decided that to make it up to her he would help her return in one piece. No matter, how matter how much strength he needed to reveal, he would get her back to Goldencrest safe and sound.

After he quickly dispatched the last of the undead monsters, he took a look around. The more he observed their surroundings, the more he believed that the teleportation circle didn't just send them deeper into the rift and that what Grace had said was correct. They had been somehow transported to another rift entirely.

It was possible that the rift had evolved into a Tier 3 one, but that wasn't something that just happened all of a sudden. There are cases when a rift evolves into a higher tier rift, but that takes time to do so.

The stone walls were also made of a slightly different composition than the ones lining the cavern walls of the school rift.

His gut feeling was that the teleportation circle sent them to a different rift. His question though was how was it possible to accurately transport them to another rift. A labyrinth type at that.

It was very confusing.

He understood that there have been cases in the past where labyrinth rifts had some sort of teleportation trap, and the people who got stuck in it found themselves in various places. Places that were even outside of the rift.

He was assuming that was the case here, but what were the odds that they would also find themselves in another labyrinth?

He shook his head. It honestly didn't matter at this point. What mattered was finding a way out of here.

"Are you just going to ignore me?" Grace, sorry Reinera asked.

He gave a glance. "Sorry, I didn't mean to. I'm trying to find a way out of here. I believe that is the more important thing at the moment."

"But you didn't answer my question," she pouted.

"Seems, familiar doesn't it?" He recalled with a chuckle.

She couldn't help but give a reluctant grin in return. "That it does."

"Still, what kind of technique did you use against those undead wolves?" She asked again.

"You know that I use kinetic energy right?"

"Of course."

"Well, I just used it to take away all of their kinetic energy," he explained plainly.

In return, all he got was a doubtful stare. "If you could really do that, then you would know how unbelievable that sounds. If it's anything like telekinesis, you would need to completely overwhelm their willpower with your own."

He just shrugged his shoulders. "I did say that their wills were very weak for Tier 3, didn't I?"

"That is not a reasonable explanation!" She exclaimed. "Don't think I didn't see how much mana just that sword took to make, there is no way a normal Tier 2 should be able to create such a mana dense construct."

She pointed at the suppression bracelet that was on his wrist. "Amelia told me what that was. I knew you were hiding your talents, but not this much. Why are you hiding so much of your actual strength?"

He shook his head at her. "The attention would be… annoying," he tried to explain to her. However, this didn't seem to appease her curiosity.

"You have five of the most influential students as your best friends, you already have a lot of attention," she pointed out.

Julius gave her another shrug. "It's a different type of attention. Being someone who is considered one of the strongest is different from being friends with people who are one of the strongest."

She just sighed in exasperation. "Well, you don't seem too worried about this," she pointed out.

He shook his head. "The fighting isn't what I am worried about. It's the potential fallout that I am troubled by."

"What do you mean?" She asked with a frown.

"What do you think is going to happen once we escape? Do you think that nobody is going to notice that I was gone alongside the princess? I can get away with hanging out with the others because they are older and the other upperclassmen think of me as the group's charity case. However, to my fellow first-years, I am an average student not worthy of much attention. Do you think that's going to remain the same?"

Julius watched as Reinera chewed on her lip. "Maybe? I am a princess after all, so it wouldn't be surprising if the others think you were just an unfortunate student dragged along. It's possible that you are just going to be known as the guy who was almost killed alongside me. If that happens I would be surprised if anyone remembers your actual name."

Huh, that's kind of mean, but honestly, that might not be too bad, he admitted inwardly. His mood improved slightly.

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He was about to say more but he sensed another group of monsters up ahead and signaled it to Reinera.

It probably would have been more exciting to say that the monsters proved to be a challenge, but he would be lying. Ever since he had combined his kinetic energy with his Inexorable Resolve to create the ability to freeze his opponents, there wasn't much difficulty in his fights.

The only ones who seemed to be able to resist were those who had Concepts of their own.

He wondered if he would ever get a skill offered to him for such a technique. He knew that from now on he would find learning skills more challenging, but he felt like it was pretty close to getting to that point.

Another pack of undead wolves was quickly taken care of without much thought and he quickly removed the cores by surrounding them with [Barrier of Severance], then controlling the barrier to bring them to him. Reinera gave him another wide-eyed look but he continued to ignore it.

He wished he could have enjoyed the labyrinth a bit more, but honestly, he didn't think this would have been the time to do so. If he was alone perhaps he would have taken more risks and had some fun, but with Reinera with him, that wouldn't be a good idea.

His perception ability was luckily able to detect several traps that he was glad to avoid. He had no intention of falling into a bunch of sharp spikes or being zapped by some mysterious magic circle.

That wasn't entirely true. He was kind of intrigued by the magic circle. He wondered what it would do if activated. He couldn't tell by looking it at.

If he had Kyle with him, he bet the other guy would have been able to tell Julius. Next time he was in a labyrinth or was planning to, he would make sure to bring Kyle along. He was sure the other guy would love seeing new and exciting magic circles. Julius wouldn't be surprised if Kyle purposefully activated them just to see what they did, kind of like Julius was thinking about doing.

It was even possible that Kyle would ask Julius to test a few himself. The guy knew that Julius had a good healing skill, so seeing how the traps worked on a real subject would have been good data for him.

Julius chuckled lightly as he thought about that.

"Having fun?" Reinera asked sarcastically.

"What? You're not?"

She smacked him hard on the shoulder. "No, unlike you, I'm not dumb enough to not realize how perilous our situation is."

"Why? You have me, don't you? You should feel so much safer," he teased her, enjoying that she was slowly acting like her usual self.

She groaned loudly. "I would feel safer if you took this a little more seriously."

"What's the point? I have my perception skill and focus skill fully activated. If I was any more tense, it would just dull my reactions. Sometimes being too serious is bad," he told her with a sagely nod.

She gave him another doubtful look but didn't try to argue with him.

He took that as a win and wore a small grin as he made his way deeper into the labyrinth.

***

Joshua POV

Joshua and the others landed on the polished stone floor of the room that held the rift. As soon as he was able to get his bearings, he promptly puked all over the floor. He wasn't the only one either. Almost every person other than Professor Rowe, who was already up on his two feet was spewing their guts.

What happened? He asked himself once he was finally done emptying the contents of his stomach.

He turned to Professor Rowe who had taken a communication device from his storage ring and was talking to someone on the other end with rapid instructions. Then he turned to see the rest of the group.

They were all fine after they finished throwing up. However, Joshua immediately realized that they were missing two people.

Where are Julius and the princess? Did they not get teleported with us?

As he was thinking about this, he noticed the rest of their class who hadn't gone into the rift were loudly asking questions in the distance. Their confusion over what had just transpired in the rift was obvious. Thankfully, the assistants managed to hold them back.

"Where is Julius?" Tia was the first one to speak up, also noticing their team member missing. Her eyes frantically darted over the entire room, looking for any signs of him.

"I don't know," Joshua responded gently to her.

"What happened? There should not have been any traps like that in the rift," James groaned angrily as he paced around, wiping the leftover bile from his face.

They all had similar questions.

Simultaneously, they looked toward Professor Rowe and were about to head toward him, but suddenly several figures appeared out of nowhere.

They all had familiar staff uniforms of Goldencrest.

"Don't let anyone leave the area until we figure out what happened," a stern-looking woman commanded to the male at her side. The man nodded in understanding and Joshua quickly felt a large barrier surround the entire area.

However, another smaller barrier from the woman appeared that surrounded the eight students and the rest of the adults.

Once, it was set up she turned back to Professor Rowe. "What happened Charles?"

Joshua could feel the intense pressure that the woman was exuding. He doubted it was on purpose, most likely it was the result of her taking this problem seriously. However, he wasn't the only one who felt uneasy under this woman's aura. The others were wearing similar grimaces.

Professor Rowe finally put away his sword and shield. "I don't know Kelsa. We entered the rift like normal, but this time we appeared in a cavern directly underneath a teleportation circle that was set up on the ceiling. There were no clear signs of any way to exit the room, and we were quickly swept up in it."

The woman, Kelsa looked over at the remaining group. "It seems you are missing a couple of students," she said solemnly.

"Yes, the princess and a student named Julius were not transported with us," Professor Rowe said.

A man who was next to the stern looking lady spoke up. "The princess is missing? How could you allow such a thing Rowe?!"

"This is not the time to be pointing fingers and blaming others, George," the lady scolded the man immediately. "It's more important that we figure out what happened. I doubt that whatever happened was just a coincidence if the princess is involved."

"You're right, apologies, ma'am," the man George apologized with an embarrassed blush. He then turned to Professor Rowe. "I'm sorry Charles, I was too quick to judge."

Professor Rowe waved it off, "There's no need George, I understand. This is not a good position to be right now."

"You didn't notice anything else about the circle?" The last woman who arrived with them asked.

"It was seemingly a natural rift spawned one like you would see in a usual trap. But I myself investigated the rift earlier this morning. There was no sign of any changes or rift evolution. The fact that it was there is very suspicious," Professor Rowe stated angrily.

Kelsa finally turned to the eight of them and Joshua felt the uneasy pressure focus on them. "You all will be taken to have your memories of the events recorded," she told them like they didn't have any choice. They probably didn't, but the way she said it rattled some of their feelings.

"Don't mistake this, you will only have to give the memories of the accounts of this last morning. Afterward, you will all be forced to swear vows of silence until told otherwise. I expect that all of you understand the potential chaos that is to come of this correct?"

They all nodded their heads and grudgingly accepted what they were told. It wasn't like they could fight her on it. This lady was most definitely at least Tier 5, maybe even stronger.

"Was this an attempt on the princess's life?" One of the boys braved to ask.

"It's possible, but until we know more, we can't say for sure," the stern woman told them.

After that they were all swiftly taken to a separate building where they were interrogated and a psychic went through their memories. It gave them all massive headaches, but they were quickly healed afterward.

The entire time though, Joshua couldn't help but worry about Julius. He surprisingly didn't care about how the princess was doing that much, he was more concerned about how his friend was faring.