Path to Transcendence
Chapter 122: Soul Stress Test

The Concept of Severing Will was a very nice addition to Julius's toolbox of powers. It wasn't like it was an end-all-be-all type of power, but it was certainly like adding wings to a wolf. Or something like that… he forgot what the actual saying was.

Admittedly, there was still much practice that Julius had to do. Declan warned him that working on his Concept would take a lot of time and require diligent practice. The process of training it would be similar to aura control and other related abilities.

Julius smiled as he heard that. To others that might be bothersome and take up a lot of time. But for Julius, that was what he had in abundance. He was already planning to spend many boring hours training his willpower alongside his aura at night.

After testing his new skill and Concept on a few golems he managed to replace, he was able to use this new remote barrier creation with a little more finesse.

Instead of using it to cover the entire golem, which used an extraordinary amount of soul energy and to some extent, mana, he was able to surround just the core of the golem. It was a much more efficient way of taking down a golem. But, it was only possible because he had [Spatial Perception] that allowed him to know exactly where the core was placed.

It wasn't like a [Mana Sense] skill would work either. Since [Spatial Perception] gave him the ability to distinctly feel where objects were within his sphere, it was as if he was feeling the core with his hands. He doubted he could have accomplished the same thing with another perception skill. His perception skill kept on giving him more pleasant surprises.

The other benefit of using [Barrier of Severance] around the golem's core was that it was much simpler to destroy than trying to destroy the entire golem's body. Who would have thought that tearing apart a core the size of an apple was easier than tearing apart a stone monster the size of a truck?

The next thing he ended up testing was the defensive ability of the skill. Although he had been using the skill for offensive purposes, [Barrier of Severance] was still supposed to be a barrier at the end of the day. It had "barrier" in its name after all. Therefore, Julius would have been pretty let down if it didn't perform well as a barrier.

Oh, how ironic it would be if his "barrier" skill worked better as a sword than a shield.

Julius found another golem pretty quickly. He also found that the further he went into the cave, the more populous it was with golems. Actually, it would be more correct to say that the more crystals he found, the more golems he found with them.

He walked up to the golem, not hiding his presence from the monster at all. When the golem finally noticed him, it went straight into attack mode. Running at him while sending blasts of orange mana from its face plate.

To someone who wasn't used to fighting, Julius would expect seeing a ten-foot stone giant chasing them down while sending blasts of energy would send them running in the other direction. However, he was somewhat proud to say that he wasn't exactly normal and didn't have enough self-preserving instincts to do just that.

Instead, he found himself running headfirst into the beam of mana. He actually noticed that he had a smile on his face as if the dangerous blast of mana was a hug from an old friend. He really had to consider whether or not he was all the way put together in the head department.

Perhaps mana and magic had changed him. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that mana and magic accentuated the more volatile aspects of his personality. When he was younger in his old world, he would often throw himself down flights of stairs or off the playsets just to experience what falling felt like.

It seemed like that part of him hadn't been left behind, as much as simply hidden away deep inside of him. He noticed it a little during the troll rift, but he had mostly blamed the emotional turmoil of losing Lukas and Edwin. Now that he had some time to look back, it wasn't that clear what the real reason was.

And now it was rearing its head and showing its presence again. Such as this need to put his face in the direct path of a dangerous blast of mana. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing in a world where overcoming challenges gave him strength.

At least he wasn't dumb enough not to have [Barrier of Severance] activated around him, which had been the whole point of this exercise in the first place.

As the mana blast reached the barrier, he could feel the barrier tear into the mana blast, ripping it apart into harmless light.

It was very similar to how Aubrey's attack had been affected by Julius's [Mana Slash] shield. The main difference was how much more effective it was and how it didn't just split the attack into two, but that it destroyed the entire attack.

The golem seemed very shocked that Julius was able to deal with its attack so easily. Well, as shocked as a golem without emotions could be at least.

Julius paused for a moment. Did they have emotions? He had seen them behave in ways that would indicate that they weren't just simple drones with cores. Curious.

He was brought out of his internal thoughts because a big stone the size of his chest was hurling at him. Now this he was a little more worried about. He had seen how well [Mana Slash] handled a more hard and rigid object before. The effect the skill had on Aubrey's [Diamond Skin] was negligible. Thus, he had learned that sharpened mana had a more difficult time taking apart things with a little more robustness to them.

However, he held his ground. If he ended up taking a big rock to the face, he just needed to trust his healing skill to take care of him afterward. It wasn't a very pleasant thought, but he needed to see how well his barrier handled physical attacks. There was still the possibility that his new skill was good for mana-based attacks and sucked at dealing with attacks that had more material substance behind them.

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And what better way to test it than live in the field?

Julius braced himself as best as he could. He closed his eyes and prayed for a positive outcome.

When the massive rock hit his barrier, he waited for it to just go through the barrier like it wasn't even there and bash his face in. Hence, he was very grateful that it was stopped instead of continuing forth and smashing his face open like an egg. He had gotten used to losing limbs and dealing with pain, but getting hit by a boulder that weighed close to a ton was still not an enjoyable activity.

[Barrier of Severance] actually surprised Julius with how effective it was. The pale white layer of sharpened mana did a very nice job of protecting him. It didn't completely destroy the rock into dust, but there was enough power behind the barrier to prevent it from reaching Julius.

Compared to his mana constructs that he often used to cover himself and use as armor, [Barrier of Severance] had this emanating force that was released from its surface. It was mainly made up of sharpened mana, but it was enough to halt the rock's force and protect Julius from eating a stone in the face.

For his armor constructs that he layered over himself, he had to add a kinetic energy component that absorbed some of the force. However, for [Barrier of Severance], it was almost like the barrier cut apart any force that approached it.

It was an interesting application of sharpened mana. He wondered how far did this extend to his other abilities. Would he eventually be able to cut off mana from his opponent's skills, rendering them useless? Was this what Declan had in mind when he mentioned that Ghostblade guy?

He had a feeling that there were a lot of uses he could replace and use with this new skill and Julius was pretty confident that his newly acquired Severing Will Concept had a lot to thank for that as well as the barrier's effectiveness.

He had a feeling that if he hadn't gotten the Concept, the barrier's defensive properties wouldn't be as well suited for physical attacks. Julius could feel a noticeable difference in how substantial his skill and the sharpened mana became once he acquired the Concept of Severing Will. It felt more real and tangible than before.

For the next while, he focused on letting the golem try its best to pummel him with stones and mana blasts. After the first few attacks, Julius started to feel more confident in his ability to block the attacks with ease. He was no longer stressed about accidentally taking a boulder to the face.

The only thing that he hadn't tried yet, was the skill's ability to take actual strikes from the golem's fists and legs. Which is exactly the reason why Julius was dashing at the golem. He could have let the lumbering thing come to him, but the big stone monster was much too slow so he went to it.

For something that was made of stone, he would have expected something a little more dangerous in close combat. However, the slow attacks made it a relatively bad close-combat fighter. Perhaps if the golem had been able to land its slow heavy strike, it would be more dangerous to the average fighter. But as long as the person wasn't as slow as a snail and had a brain on their head, they wouldn't get hit by it.

Ironically, Julius realized how contradictory that was to his current actions. Not only was he fast enough to dodge, but he also had a head with a brain on his shoulders, yet here he was jumping at the golem's approaching fist.

He had been totally expecting the thing to send him flying across the cave. Julius hadn't thought that the golem would do any real damage, at least if its punch were around the same threat as its stone attack. However, he had been sure that the difference in mass would be too great to counteract, especially once he left his feet.

So when he was barely pushed back midair he was left pleasantly surprised. The barrier had not only carved up the golem's fist like a windstorm of blades, but it also cut up the force behind the blow.

Julius was thinking about how well this would synergize with his kinetic affinity. If he were to use kinetic energy on top of [Barrier of Severance], then he would most likely not be pushed back at all.

He had found that one of the most annoying things about fighting larger and stronger opponents was the effect of getting knocked back. However, with this new development, he didn't think it would be as much of an issue as before.

Julius smiled at the golem who had let him come to this realization.

I am really enjoying this rift so far. Not only have I gotten a new amazing skill, but I also learned a Concept and can finally evolve my skills into an epic one. The golems are also a pretty good training partner to test out these new abilities. I might have just found my new favorite monster. Julius internally thanked the monster and its siblings who had helped him so far.

Julius kept letting the golem "beat" on him without moving from the spot where he had planted himself. The golem was doing everything to take Julius down. It was alternating between heavy strikes with its limbs, blasts of orange mana, and smashing stones on Julius's body. The golem's fists which were torn to the shreds by his barrier were regenerating with rock at a rapid pace as it continued its assault.

None of which worked very well.

Unfortunately, Julius realized that his new Concept could only work out so well for so long. After several minutes of constant beating, Julius started to feel the weariness of using his Concept for too long without rest.

However, he quickly realized that this was also a good form of training for his Concept and willpower. Therefore, he pushed himself. He pushed himself hard to maintain a grip on his Concept as the golem tried to flatten him to the ground like a pancake.

He felt his soul start to warp from the stress he was putting it under. He could feel blood trickling down his nose and ears. His teeth cracked from the force of grinding his jaw together. He held out for as long as he could.

He was holding it together with sheer willpower.

Eventually, after much longer than any normal person should have been capable of, Julius was unable to keep up his barrier and felt it shatter underneath the pressure. The golem's fist that had broken through smashed into Julius's chest and sent him flying across the cavern floor.

Julius was completely out of it, but he felt himself roll and roll until he felt his back slam against a large protruding crystal.

He didn't have any energy left to use his new Concept. Fortunately, he still had an almost entirely full mana pool to use. He created a spike of hardened mana and sent it screaming at the golem who was taking advantage of Julius's precarious state, waddling over to his prone figure to beat him some more.

Julius had to be honest with himself, the spike wasn't pretty. If he had to grade its construction, he would give it a D minus at best. Still, he gave himself some slack, his mind was completely addled and only pure instincts left him able enough to defend himself.

However, just because the spike wasn't his best, didn't mean it wasn't more than enough to completely obliterate the golem's shoulder. He hadn't been accurate enough to hit its core, but half of the golem went missing with a single strike.

He quickly followed up with an additional spike that was more carefully aimed and tore apart its core.

Once he was sure that the golem was finished for good, he laid down and took deep gasping breaths.

[Barrier of Severance lvl 6 -> lvl 9]

[Empowerment of Will lvl 12 -> lvl 14]