Path to Transcendence
Chapter 78: Birth of a Life Spirit

When Julius got back to his dorm, he saw his roommate, Henry there as well. Ever since their first conversation, they hadn't said a word to each other. Not that Julius minded that. His first impression of Henry was not the best.

Henry was sitting at his desk, scribbling away on a piece of paper. He didn't even acknowledge Julius's entrance, he only looked back upon hearing the door open and then proceeded to turn back to whatever he was doing without a word.

Julius didn't let it bother him and headed over to Drasil. He was going to feed the little guy but he decided to bring him along with him to his night training session. He didn't want to leave the poor fellow alone with the noble all night. So with a quick scoop, he picked up the spirit seed and walked back out of the dorm, not saying goodbye to Henry.

The first-year side of campus was still quite empty, except for several students who were walking back to their dorms, and several groups of friends who were having fun exploring their new school.

Julius watched as the group of friends were fooling around with each other, gently shoving and laughing with one another. It was a heartwarming scene.

When he got to the first-year training facility, he was surprised to see much more activity than usual. There was a game of some sort that a large group of students were playing. It reminded Julius of soccer but instead of using their feet, they used their hands.

It was set up in the main room of the facility and Julius could see that it was getting really competitive. Most of the students were probably warriors or close combat builds if their physical abilities were any indicator.

He saw a couple of the students in his class earlier participating as well. Julius himself was tempted to join in with them. He had really missed recreational sports activities in the time he had been in this world. He had always loved playing sports growing up.

But he denied the temptation and proceeded to head toward one of the smaller meditation rooms. However, as he was walking by the game, Julius noticed several pairs of eyes watching him as he passed them. He thought they would have paid more attention to the miniature tree he was carrying, but they seemed to not even recognize it. Instead, they were focused on him. The most prominent one was from a large boy with wolf-like ears. Julius hadn't seen him in any of his classes, but the beastkin boy followed Julius's movements until he entered the room and closed the door.

Once he got inside, he settled down on the mat that was provided and turned on the isolation enchantments. Then he began training his aura suppression, he would need to figure out how to do that before he could focus on the passive enhancement element.

For several hours Julius practiced his aura. It was a difficult thing to get down. It wasn't hard to control most of his aura, the hard part was that the more he controlled the more challenging it was to handle any additional amount.

Every once in a while, he would take a break from it and focus on [Mana Layering] or [Swordsmanship]. After some time, the students had finished up their game and went back to their dorms, leaving Julius alone with a couple of other students training who were isolated in rooms of their own. He knew that they were there because the doors of the other training rooms had red lights that indicated that they were occupied.

He had just finished another round with the training dummy and put his sword down, healing himself with [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal]. It was the first time he had used it all night, he was still trying to wear himself as far as his body could take before he healed himself.

It was showing results too. He had noticed that he wasn't as out of breath as usual. Even in the past couple of days, he had already seen some improvement.

He was surprised to see he had some notifications that he must have missed after his stress relief training.

[Mana Layering lvl 12 -> lvl 13]

[Swordsmanship lvl 8 -> lvl 9]

[Mana Layering] had gotten all the way to level 13 and was getting close to the final threshold. [Swordsmanship] had also gotten to level 9. Just one away from evolving into an uncommon skill. He was looking forward to what he might get. He hoped that it would be a good skill that would synergize well with his other skills.

He had done a little research about the potential skills after [Swordsmanship]. There were a lot of options that didn't specialize in purely swordsmanship. There were some that totally deviated from sword fighting. Julius had read about a skill called [Pointy Tip], which wasn't about a sharper sword at all. It was a skill that hardened one's "sword", and not the one used for fighting. There was also another skill he saw, it was called [Plant Dismemberment]. It was a skill meant for gardeners and those who cultivate plants. Supposedly, it increases the effectiveness of the herb or plant when harvested using the skill.

Julius was hoping for one that would go well with some of his other skills. He wanted to organize some space for any other skills he might want in the future. The next skill he wanted to get, was the [Quick Step] skill that Aubrey had talked about more in-depth at dinner.

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It was apparently an uncommon skill that was only acquired by learning how to use ambient or pure mana and using it to enhance one's movements. However, once you learned it, the skill automatically controlled the ambient mana for you, so it wasn't that bad, or so Aubrey said. She said the hardest part was learning it in the first place.

He was tempted to try to begin learning it over the night but decided that he would wait for Gabriel to show him and give him some tips beforehand. He wasn't in that much of a rush to learn it, the skill at least in the beginning stages wouldn't be extremely useful for Julius. He would have to wait to evolve it before he would see any real benefit. In the meantime, he had a lot of other things he needed to do.

Julius practiced for a couple of more hours before he prepared to go back to his dorm. He had made some strides in his aura training. It would just take some time and energy before he got it down.

He picked up little Drasil and gave him a healthy early morning meal of life mana. However, the second he started to feed the little guy, Julius noticed something off right away. The spirit seed was no longer just sucking in the life mana, now it was pulsing in energy.

Is it ready? He thought excitedly to himself.

Julius didn't want to jump the gun, but it definitely looked like something was happening. He continued to feed Drasil with his mana. He crossed both of his fingers and even his toes, praying that it would work out.

The spirit seed was glowing a verdant green, gently humming with life energy. Julius could feel the seed undergoing some sort of metamorphosis. There was energy swirling in wildly complex patterns, like leaves in a tornado.

Then suddenly it just stopped. All the energy was no longer moving, it had gone away like it was never there. Minutes went by with nothing happening and the longer it went on, the more worried Julius became.

He was completely still, his eyes not leaving the spirit seed the entire time. Julius couldn't help it, but doubts started to creep into his subconscious.

What if it had failed? What if I had used too much life mana?

Thankfully, Julius noticed the spirit seed begin to glow again. This time it was a blinding green light, and then above it, a small orb the size of a ping-pong ball started to form. It was quite magical.

After the orb formed, Julius saw the branches, leaves, and flowers of the spirit seed start to slowly dissolve. In the places where it had dissolved, small particles of green light were all that remained. Next, the green particles floated up to the orb and were absorbed by it.

It was slow at the beginning but picked up speed as time went on. A few minutes later the orb was like a vortex. The branch was almost completely gone and the orb was a thick, dense green sphere of life mana.

Then suddenly, it just burst apart, and in its place was a light green human-like figure the size of his thumb. It was ridiculously cute. The spirit's eyes were still closed like it was sleeping and its body was covered by something that looked like a miniature leaf.

Julius gently took the spirit in his hands like he would with a newborn baby. This was his spirit, his new familiar. Julius smiled wide and cradled little Drasil to his chest. As soon as he did that though, Drasil rubbed its head into Julius's chest, trying to nestle even deeper.

Julius laughed softly to himself as he watched it. He still didn't know what gender Drasil was. The only book he read about it, said that spirits don't really have genders in the same way humans do, but they often lean toward one side more than the other. Julius had always kind of thought that Drasil was more of a boy, but he would have to wait until the spirit grew up a little bit.

As Julius was thinking, he felt something pressing against his chest. He looked down and saw the spirit pressing against it, and then abruptly sunk right into his chest. Julius panicked for a moment until he felt something enter his core.

He took a second to take a look at his core and right where his life mana was, Drasil was floating there.

Julius didn't know how that was possible. He hadn't started the familiar bond to his knowledge, but something must've happened that allowed Drasil to enter his core. It wasn't a big deal though, Julius had always been planning for Drasil to remain primarily in his core, but it was still a surprise for Drasil to do it all on his own.

Julius shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know what happened but he was happy with the result so he wasn't going to complain. He was extremely happy that he now had a familiar of his own.

Welcome to the team buddy. He said internally to the spirit lying in his core.

Julius left the training facility at around five o'clock. He went back to his dorm, making sure to be extra quiet on his way in. Luckily, he was able to get in and grab a new change of clothes before heading off to the bathroom to clean up.

Once he was done with that, he climbed down to the same beach he and the others had visited a couple of days ago. As he sat down in the soft sand, he relaxed and watched the waves rock back and forth. Then he took out a book out of his pack and began reading.

The sun hadn't risen yet, so he had to create small orbs of light using fire mana to see the pages. He did that for about an hour and waited for the sun to rise.

And was a beautiful sight when it finally did. Julius observed as the golden sun softly rose from the horizon, illuminating the ocean and the beach around him. He just took it in, while enjoying his book. It was moments like these that gave him pleasure.

He stayed there for a bit longer, even eating a blueberry muffin he had saved from the day before and talking to Drasil who was still residing inside his core. He didn't know if he could hear Julius, but now that he was born he wanted to keep on talking with the spirit.

When it was about time for his first class, he stood up and got ready to go. But there was a lot of sand that managed to get into his pants, so he had to spend a couple of minutes shaking his clothes and jumping up and down, to get it out of his pants.

Once he had gotten as much out as he could, he headed back up the cliff and back to campus. He had a big grin on his face and was ready for his second day of classes to begin.