Path to Transcendence

Julius thought about just killing the troll quickly and being done with it, but he had a much dumber plan. He wanted to try out his new [Kinetic Reinforcement] skill. He wouldn't have chosen to try it out with all four alive, but now that only one remained, he felt like it was his best chance to test it out.

He didn't let it come to him, instead, he charged straight at it. He empowered his body with kinetic mana and whatever leftover kinetic energy he absorbed from his earlier explosion. Right as the troll loaded up a double-handed swing from its right, Julius burst stepped into the left side of the troll, absorbing all his momentum and stopping on a dime. He then uncorked a kinetic strike to the troll's ribcage.

The difference between the power of the strike before, and now that it was enhanced with [Kinetic Reinforcement] showed. The troll's skin was shredded apart, leaving a crater of missing flesh. The troll itself was blasted off its feet into the grass they were standing on.

Julius was surprised at the dramatic difference [Kinetic Reinforcement] had on his physical capabilities. The skill was still rated as uncommon, not even rare, and yet he felt like the impact of it was on par or better than [Savage Dance] or [Spatial Perception]. He couldn't help but wonder how much of a difference activating [Restoration] had on his transformation.

There was a small part of Julius that wished that the trolls were better fighters. It might have meant that he would have a much harder time killing them, but on the other hand, he would be able to test his fighting abilities against a skilled opponent. However, fighting something two tiers above him was going to do a lot for his skill progression regardless, so he didn't let it bother him too much.

For the moment Julius was going to use the troll as a sparring partner. Julius decided to fight but did not use any of his fire mana techniques to do so. He wanted to have a good old-fashioned brawl with the eight-foot gray behemoth.

It may not have been the safest or smartest decision, but he couldn't think of a better way to level up [Restoration] and [Kinetic Reinforcement]. He didn't know when it happened, but Julius had gotten comfortable endangering himself, all in the name of improvement. He had always been somewhat of a training nut, but his recent actions put the old him to shame. However, he could see that his new methods were working very well. In the years he spent practicing, he wasn't subjected to any real life-or-death situations. Even with Edwin brutally beating him down every day for years on end, Julius knew that he was never in any real danger.

Now, he could feel each fight had a risk associated with it, he couldn't afford to lose. That also meant his skills increased by leaps and bounds as well. He had made more progress in these couple weeks than he had in years of training. Admittedly, those years of training had built a foundation that allowed him to make such large increases. If it wasn't for that, he wouldn't be able to progress so fast. However, it wasn't until he was pushed to his limits that he saw such distinct growth.

Not to mention, Julius was having the time of his life. He kept telling himself he shouldn't be, with what happened to Lukas and Edwin. Yet, he couldn't ignore the way he felt when he experienced the wind of a strike that could take his head off missing by inches. Or how the world seemed to simplify and became so much clearer whenever he fought or trained past his limit. It was like he was finally experiencing the world for the first time and it felt right.

It appeared that Julius didn't have any more time to contemplate his psychological stability, because a very incensed troll was charging straight at him even more angry than before. Julius prepared himself, ready to go toe to toe with the monster; no tricks, no traps, just pure fist versus fist. Well, more like club versus fist if I want to get technical, Julius thought to himself.

He allowed the troll to attack him at its own pace. He didn't attack it in return, he just focused on evading its wild strikes. [Spatial Perception], [Savage Dance], and [Kinetic Reinforcement] complimented each other very well. One was able to give him unparalleled awareness, another allowed him to have exceptional control over his movements and decision-making, while the other gave him the power to take advantage of the other skills.

The troll was still vastly stronger than Julius, but his ability to use kinetic energy to accelerate and decelerate so quickly allowed him to keep up. Thanks to his other skills, he was practically dancing around the troll. Although, he still had taken a couple of small grazes from the club. Though he said small, the strength and brutality of the hits still meant he had to deal with several broken and fractured bones. Luckily [Restoration] was healing him with astonishing speed. It was much faster than before.

All in all, Julius could noticeably feel himself getting better as the fight progressed. He hadn't allowed himself to get hit in the past few minutes, transitioning each burst of kinetic energy to another movement better than the beginning of the fight. He was also using barely any mana. Though, he would have been close to exhaustion if not for [Restoration] taking care of it.

So far he had just continued to dodge, not making any attacks toward it. Julius was impressed at the trolls' tenacity. It was still going just as strong as when the fight first started. However, it made sense. If Julius was able to heal his fatigue, why wouldn't the troll be able to as well? After all, Julius's skill was heavily inspired off of the troll's healing skill.

With that being said, he was curious why the trolls needed to hunt for food. He hadn't felt the pangs of hunger in a while. It could be that his skill evolved differently from their own.

He was getting distracted by his thoughts, and almost took a club in a chest for his inattention. Julius shook his head at his behavior and then grinned like a madman. I think I got a handle on evading, let's see how I do with going on the offensive.

The entire fight Julius had been the one on the receiving end of the assault, now it was the troll's turn. Instead of stepping back, he slid closer to the troll's chest. He unleashed a heavy kick to the troll's kneecap, causing a loud crunch. The troll, on one knee, tried to sweep Julius off his feet with a wild backhand but he jumped over it and landed a clean punch right to the monster's temple.

He felt something crack underneath his knuckles and quickly delivered two more swift strikes to the troll. Unfortunately, it recovered very rapidly and Julius had to disengage. He continued this pattern for several more minutes, experimenting with new techniques. He was able to consistently get into a position to strike the thing's head, but he was unable to kill it in a couple of hits.

He was confident that if he was able to get it to stop moving for several seconds, he would be able to unleash enough strikes to put it down. However, it recovered way too fast for him to get such an opportunity.

Still, Julius had an idea. He had been inspired by seeing how his hardened fire spikes were able to penetrate the troll's skull and how much more effective an explosion was when it was released from inside the monster.

Kinetic energy was really bad at creating a static construct, so he used fire mana. He wove a layer of mana around his right hand and compressed it into a sharp spike protruding from his knuckles, loading it with kinetic energy as well. The moment he saw an opening, he darted in and smashed the spike into the troll's chest. The spike was able to make it several inches deep and Julius detonated it.

It wasn't his brightest moment. He had completely overlooked that he would be caught up in the explosion as well since it was still attached to this fist. It predictably exploded and flung Julius off to the side, his arm mangled and badly burned.

It was healing, but so was the troll. The fist-sized hole in its chest was being regenerated faster than Julius's own skill. If he hadn't improved his physique, that move might have taken off his entire arm. He didn't know if he could regrow limbs yet, but he didn't want to find out anytime soon.

He tried it again. This time, he was going to leave the spikes in the troll's body before detonating them. The troll had become more wary over the course of the fight, but it was still a monster and continued to attack Julius with nothing held back.

Julius evaded a wide swing and slid to the side of the overhead strike following it. Then he released a small burst of kinetic energy at the troll's foot, tripping it. Instead of a single woven spike, Julius created two side-by-side on his fist. With the troll struggling to get back up in time, he slammed his fist down on the back of its head, breaking off the spikes into its skull. He swiftly used the troll's body as a springboard and kicked off it with a burst of kinetic energy. As he was retreating, he released the payload inside the spikes.

Two quick consecutive thumps later, the head was gone, and in its place was a red cloud of blood.

That might be the way to kill them without using all my mana, Julius thought to himself.

Kinetic energy was extremely mana efficient and reusable, and with [Restoration] keeping him fresh, he was able to fight for long periods. These new spikes were really good at killing the trolls. Compared to his enhanced [Firebolt], the spikes used a fraction of the mana. They were slower to create, but he could create a dozen of them at once and he would get faster with practice. The biggest advantage was that the spikes were able to penetrate deep into the flesh of the trolls and release a detonation, making the explosion much more potent than exploding on the outside.

He would save [Firebolt], especially the very powerful blue one he made against the troll leader for opponents that called for it. Otherwise, it was way way overboard for regular trolls. That attack had taken out a small piece of a mountain and a third of his mana. It was going to be a strategic weapon, not his go-to attack for the average troll.

Now that Julius was done with the fight, he left back toward his ravine. He took the time to collect the mana cores of the trolls but didn't really want to. He had no plans of using them for himself. It was well known that core users were oftentimes much weaker than those who didn't use them. But they might be valuable to others once he leaves and could sell them for good money. However, he had nowhere to put them at the moment and he already had to stash his others in a hidden spot in the ravine.

He sneakily returned to the valley and entered his secret spot in the ravine. It was already almost dark by the time he made his way back. He wasn't worried about the other trolls finding the bodies of their comrades, the rift should absorb their bodies by the time morning came.

He had dismissed the many notifications he had gotten during the fight. But now seemed like a good time to see how well he did.

[Spatial Perception lvl 18 -> lvl 19]

[Savage Dance lvl 4 -> lvl 7]

[Firebolt lvl 11 -> lvl 13]

[Thermal Compression lvl 10 -> lvl 13]

[Restoration lvl 7 -> lvl 10]

[Kinetic Reinforcement lvl 7 -> lvl 10]

The gains were better than he expected. Every single skill had leveled up, even [Spatial Perception] which was now a level away from advancing. He had a feeling that getting that one level was going to be really difficult. However, he already had an idea of what he was going to do if he got stuck, but he didn't want to resort to that quite yet. That was the last resort.

For now, he needed to concentrate on getting his uncommon skills up to rare. [Firebolt] and [Thermal Compression] were neck and neck. Julius wanted to get both of them up to rare by the end of the week if possible. His instincts were telling him that he was on a timer and he wouldn't like what would happen if he didn't clear the rift by then. So he didn't have any time to waste.