Path to Transcendence

If there was anything that Julius had learned, it was that he should not underestimate the wonder and unpredictable nature of magic. He should never have doubted whether or not the boat fit all of them. The interior of the flying ship was more than large enough to accommodate everyone and still had room for twice the number of people.

While he and the others were sitting around, away from the more condensed crowd, he felt Ashton approaching.

"I am glad to see that you made it," Ashton said to Julius with a bright smile.

"Of course, thanks for extending the invitation. It was quite generous of you," he said with a grateful nod. From the guild's perspective, Julius was merely a newly fledged bronze adventurer who had recently ranked up to D-rank. Thus, it was somewhat of a surprise that he was offered such a chance.

"Don't worry about it. It wasn't a big deal. We only limited how people could participate because if we didn't, we would have half of the town signing up. This was just an easier way to control the chaos," Ashton explained.

Julius nodded in understanding. "Still, I know you didn't have to offer it to me."

"No, but it's never bad to help out promising kids like yourself," Ashton said with a good-natured grin.

Julius shook his head and talked with Ashton for a couple of minutes before the man excused himself. When the man left, he turned to Lily and gave her a questioning look.

"So?" He asked her.

"I wasn't able to sense anything other than goodwill and some curiosity toward you," she said with a little tightening of her lips.

"So you don't think he has any bad intentions?"

"Not that I could tell," she said confidently.

That made Julius release a sigh of relief. While he hadn't caught any whiff of wrongness from the man's aura, it was always nice to have Lily double-check for him. She was very good at feeling who was a good person and who was a bad person.

"So why did he offer Julius to come along?" Aubrey asked. "Was it just because he was curious and nice? That seems a bit weird. Are you sure this isn't another complicated plan someone is setting up to kill Julius?"

"You know, not everyone I meet is out to kill me, Aubrey," he said to her.

"Of course not, but you can't lie. The number of people who tried to kill you is extraordinarily high. Therefore, we can't be too sure anymore," Aubrey argued.

Derek sighed. "It is likely that the man feels that Julius is someone important or strong and wants to build a relationship with him early."

"Yeah, there's that too," Aubrey said with a stiff nod.

Some time goes by as they make their way to where the rift is located. Along the way, he spotted a powerful flying monster approaching the aircraft. It was a bit of a surprise since the boat had some powerful stealth magic placed on it. It must have been a creature with a powerful perception skill of its own. Luckily, a man intercepted it before it got too close.

He wore a guild uniform, but other than that, he carried no weapons. Julius watched as he surrounded himself in mana and launched himself into the air toward the monster.

He didn't move as fast as Syla, but Julius was still impressed at how well controlled the man's flight was. He suspected that he had some wind magic or something similar to accomplish it.

Julius didn't feel worried. This man seemed very calm and confidently headed straight toward the monster who was hesitantly floating around the boat. It noticed the flying mage and it was only then that it decided to attack.

Julius saw the monster covered in glowing white mana, and in a burst of speed that rivaled Syla's own speed, it speared itself toward the mage. However, it wasn't enough. The man constructed a thick barrier in front of himself, blocking the monster's attack with ease.

The impact from hitting the barrier didn't seem to deter the monster, but the man didn't look bothered by this. Before the monster could attack once again, a barrage of mana bolts smashed into it. The force of the attacks had the monster floundering backwards.

It only took a couple more liberal blasts of mana to make the monster realize that the boat wasn't something it should mess with, and the man had it fleeing pretty quickly. Unlike what Julius expected, the man didn't go after it and simply came back to the boat. Upon closer inspection, Julius was able to sense that the man was a powerful Tier 4.

He wasn't the only Tier 4 on this expedition either. There were multiple other Tier 4s along with a powerful Tier 5 aura on board. He also wouldn't be shocked to learn that there was another Tier 5 on board, but was hiding from his senses. While his skill was powerful, he had already learned that a powerful person still had ways to hide from him if they really wanted to.

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Eventually, they arrived at the rift and he could feel the ship start to float down toward the ground. When they all got off he was surprised at how well the guild had organized things. He had been expecting a rift in the middle of a forest with nothing else around. However, he spotted an entire encampment with many other people around.

They had cleared all of the trees from the area to make a large opening. There were even buildings created with earth magic all around. It was practically a pop-up village in the middle of the Endless Forest.

Unfortunately, they weren't just able to head right in the rift. There were still some things that needed to be done and they would have to wait until they were completed. That led to all of them heading off to a more isolated area to hang out in the meantime.

However, they weren't left alone for long. As they were talking, a group of people around their age approached them. There were six of them, four of them boys and two of them girls. At first, it seemed like they had come over to get away from the massive crowd of people like they did, but after a little bit, one of the girls with light blonde hair and a bow strapped to her back began to talk to Lily.

"Are you from Peralt?" She asked curiously.

Lily pivoted her attention to the girl. "Not originally, we arrived not too long ago."

Julius observed as Lily and the girl started talking. The other girl introduced herself as well and before he knew it, their group were all getting to know one another.

Julius did his best to listen to some of their conversations, but most of his focus was on the rift portal not too far away. It was placed in the middle of the makeshift base and was surrounded by many guild employees. This portal was different from the other portals he had come across.

Unlike the usual blue tinge, it had this reddish aura seeping from it. Perhaps it was a byproduct of what made this rift unique. The spatial ripples he felt coming from the rift were still similar to what he had felt before, though.

He got distracted enough that he failed to notice someone trying to get his attention until Aubrey poked him in the stomach.

"Ow, what was that for?" He asked while rubbing his stomach.

"Stop it, we will have plenty of time to investigate the rift when the time comes. In the meantime, you should just relax and take a break," she said in a hush.

"How did you know I was looking at it?"

She gave him a disappointing glare. "Because I just know," she said with a furrowing of her eyebrows.

He saw her point, though, and for the time being, relaxed as much as he could. He even went so far as to create a small chair of mana for himself and take out some snacks to munch on.

He did notice that a particular girl was glancing at him from time to time. It was the girl with blonde hair and a bow. She was very subtle about it, but with his perception skill, he was able to sense when she looked over at him. She seemed very interested in his chair as well, much to his amusement.

Thankfully, it seemed more out of genuine curiosity than anything else and didn't bother him too much. He also noticed that while they engaged the others in conversation, nobody went over to talk to him. He was fine with this, of course, but he wondered if he looked unfriendly or something.

It didn't matter too much because, before very long, a man called out for everyone to gather around. It was time for everyone to enter the rift.

He let out a relieved sigh as he got up and headed over, along with the others. It was time to see what was so special about this rift and why nobody had been able to clear it yet.

***

A couple of hundred Tier 3s found themselves standing in front of a man dressed in a guild uniform. The man was rugged but emitted a powerful aura. Julius had a feeling that he was Tier 5. He had only gotten this same feeling from other Tier 5s he had met.

The man's surprisingly timbre voice rang out through the woods. "Welcome, everyone. I am glad to see that so many of you have accepted this invitation. My name is Simon, and I am an executive of the Adventurer Guild and the one who is in charge of this little event. As you might already know, this rift is a bit different than your typical rift. There isn't a lot of known information we were able to gather from it, but from what we could discern, there are ten floors to the rift. Each one has different requirements to pass onto the next floor," Simon explained while looking out to the crowd, making sure they were all paying attention.

When he was sure they were, he continued. "Each floor you pass, will earn you a higher form of reward when you exit. We must also stress how crucial it is for you to understand when to give up. We don't want a large number of you to attempt a floor that is beyond your abilities. We have already lost too many young people because of that. If you feel like you are in trouble, get out," Simon said seriously, and to accentuate his point, he released some of his aura in an impressive display of skill and control.

Julius already appreciated this man. He felt that without this warning, many people might try to risk it just to clear one more floor. However, greed was a powerful thing, and he suspected that there would still be people who would push it too far and pay the consequences.

"We have also learned that there is a form of time dilation within the rift. You could spend days in there only to come out an hour later in real time. So take your time, be careful and make sure you do your due diligence. A good rift clear is one where nobody gets hurt," the Tier 5 said.

That was something Julius was glad to hear. This meant that he didn't have to worry about taking so long in there, wasting precious time out in the real world. This was perfect for someone like him who was looking to improve in as little time as possible.

Simon continued to explain details they had found about the rift and also went into the reasons behind their decision to create this event. However, Julius didn't really take the time to listen that closely to it. He made sure to pay attention when he heard something important but he was very distracted by the rhythmic beating of the portal laying in front of him.

All he wanted to do was to get in there. However, he reminded himself to stay patient and wait until the event began.

Thankfully, the orientation didn't last for too much longer and he found himself standing in line, waiting for his turn to enter the rift and rubbing his hands together eagerly.