Path to Transcendence

Julius pumped his fist through the air and checked the notifications he received with a smile.

[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 8 -> lvl 9]

[Barrier of Severance lvl 16 -> lvl 17]

It also felt good taking out all of those ants. Those things were menaces, especially when they were the size of a fully grown poodle.

He took a glance at his mana to see where it stood at and winced a little bit.

That last orb had taken a good chunk out of his mana. More than he had been planning to at least. But he also thought that it was a worthwhile endeavor. He now had a new way to create his constructed bombs.

Plus, he still had a good amount left over.

At Tier 2, he had a lot of mana for his tier, but now that he had advanced to Tier 3 it had gotten even larger. And while that advantage of having more mana than other people of his tier wouldn't be as drastic as it once had been, it was still big.

While he was about to sit down and relax, he felt something shift around him.

It was like the entire rift had gripped him and then suddenly all he saw was blackness.

Thankfully, only a few moments went by like this until he was able to see again.

He was no longer standing on top of the hill. He was now standing in a very large closed cavern. The ceiling wasn't that high and he was placed in the center of a massive bowl.

Okay, I suspected the rift wouldn't like how I completed that last wave, but this is going too far. I am literally being put into a death pit, he complained.

At least the hill had given him some kind of positional advantage, but now he was literally in the center of a sloped bowl where he was the main target.

With that being said, he wasn't just going to sit in the pit and let the wave start with him totally exposed. Nope, he would at least make his way toward the taller edges of the bowl.

Or he would have if he could.

Once he started to try to walk up the slope toward the other side, he felt something grab ahold of him. It was like someone had taken control of all of his limbs and he couldn't move a single inch.

It was as if his own kinetic technique was being used against him.

He could only sigh in amazement. Was the rift really trying so hard to handicap him? What did he do? He couldn't even reposition himself so he was in the worst place to be.

He found that he was able to move as long as he wasn't actively trying to go to the top part of the slope. So instead, he just sat down and meditated. He might as well recover as much mana as he could.

He had a bad feeling that this next wave is going to be much more difficult than the last one and the ones before it combined.

***

Yep, I'm in deep shit, he thought to himself as he stared at the spawned horde in front of him.

Of course, the rift couldn't have shown him some mercy and gave him another monster to fight. Nope, it must have sensed his revulsion because once again it sent another army of ants at him.

But for every ten of the weaker ants, he sensed at least one Tier 3 ant to go along with them.

To make it even worse, there had to be around half a dozen larger insects that stood out from the rest.

He would bet every piece of food in his storage ring that they had at least one Concept.

Yep, he was sure of it. The rift was out to get him, there was no way a normal Tier 3 would be able to handle all of these monsters. It was probably only due to his performance so far that it was doing this.

Stupid hard difficultly, why did it actually have to be this hard? Just because something was labeled 'hard' didn't mean it really had to be.

He cursed the rift once more in his head.

He better be getting a good reward out of this once he finishes the Challenge. If he didn't, he would actually try and permanently destroy this rift if all it gave him was a stupid shiny sword at the end of it.

Once again, he wasn't worried about dying or anything. The ants were scary, but they weren't out of his expectations.

He was just certain that he wouldn't get out of this one without using a lot of mana. It was too many opponents and there weren't even ways for him to safely disengage to recover his mana.

There was no sky for him to hide or any way for him to lead them around the nose while he regenerated mana. He would be swarmed by all of these monsters pretty quickly.

Speaking of which, the stupid ants didn't wait for him to act, they went after him the moment they spawned.

Julius could only sigh as he went in.

He wouldn't be using his newly discovered bomb unless he needed to. He would try to take out these things in close combat to conserve as much mana as he possibly could.

On the bright side, he would get a good opportunity to train up his body skills.

He dashed forward to a random group of ants. Their razor-sharp mandibles didn't deter him.

He activated [Thermal Empowerment] and [Kinetic Augmentation], however, he made sure to tone down [Kinetic Augmentation] for the moment, keeping the balance between the two pretty even. After all, it was the more resource-intensive skill between the two skills.

That being said, the ants didn't stand a chance.

He tore through three of them with three strikes. Crushing the skulls of two of them and ripping through the throat of the other one within seconds.

When they did try and swarm him, he just released a powerful localized blast of mana, which took care of all of them easily and efficiently.

He was hoping that they would continue this strategy as it actually helped him. However, it would seem the rift or the ants seemed to understand this and stopped swarming him. Much to his displeasure.

The biggest advantage he had was that the ants were large enough that they got in each other's way, so only a few could attack him at once.

Suddenly he noticed a shining white light spear down from the ceiling.

He used [Flash Step] to dodge it and tried to figure out where that attack came from. He took out several other ants as he did so, not sensing anything.

It wasn't until he was clipped from behind and staggered a bit that he sensed a pulse of mana come from the ceiling once more.

He quickly traced the mana back to one of the larger ants sitting in the back. Its eyes were glowing white and was looking at Julius with an expression that he could only think of as taunting.

Just because he felt spiteful, Julius sent a quick spike of mana at the ant in question. He didn't know if it was the queen though, it looked very similar to the rest. But he wasn't surprised when a thick layer of mana formed around the ant.

The spike still tore through it, but it had weakened the spike enough that the quick ant evaded it before it could do too much damage and hid behind the rest of its comrades.

Julius made sure to give it a taunting look in return before focusing back on the horde of ants trying to eat his face.

Like he said, he wasn't in any real trouble as of yet. [Barrier of Severance] and his enhancement skills were more than enough to protect him against these weak Tier 2 ants. He didn't even have any need to use his constructs yet.

He reminded himself to stay focused as he got distracted when one of the Tier 3 ants decided to attack him from behind. It left a small scrape that managed to pierce his defenses, but it wasn't that bad. It was shallow enough that he decided not to even heal it.

But he turned his attention toward it and hunted it down before it could do it again. With a burst of speed, he tore through half a dozen ants and stood in front of the Tier 3 ant.

It had tried to retreat after its attempt, but Julius wasn't going to allow it. He grabbed the ant by its jaws as it tried to bite him and while he kicked away the swarming ants, he tore the monster's bottom jaw from its face with a grunt.

He then infused some of his Sharpness Concept into the jaw and threw it at the nearest ant in a burst of speed. It pierced the ant's chest and lodged itself into the ant behind it with a loud thump.

He kept at it.

He didn't show any mercy and was animalistic in the way he tore these revolting insects apart. He would often use the ants themselves as weapons to throw around and use as shields.

He fell into a trance. It didn't matter if they were Tier 2 or Tier 3, they were crushed under his fists all the same.

In the back of his mind, he realized that he was burning through his stamina and to some extent his mana, but he was way too occupied with the fight to care. He felt himself smiling like a madman as if he were like a bloody storm of death.

He was making continuous improvements to his enhancement skills and in the background, he knew that he had multiple notifications already present.

However, while he was absorbed in combat, he started to feel something else. Something that made him very excited and forced him to use [Sage of Savagery] to delve deeper into the sensation.

The world seemed to slow down as he became more conscious about each punch and strike he made.

He was aware of the gathering and eventual release of his kinetic energy, the effect pummeling his opponents into pulp.

His kinetic energy felt so snappy and explosive.

It was quiet one moment and deafening the next.

It was during this moment that he reached the realm of profoundness that he had been searching for.

His blows started to feel less simple and more explosive. It was almost like the echoed and poured into his opponents like an endless tidal wave.

That's it, he smiled to himself in realization.

He smashed a fist into one of the larger ants and he felt his kinetic energy vibrate through its body in a series of waves.

It was a strike that was way stronger than it should have been considering how much mana and kinetic energy he used in it.

One moment the ant was there and the next moment the entire ant disappeared in a flash of exploding yellow blood. It was like the ant had imploded from the inside.

And as the blood and flesh from the monster rained down on him from the sky, he finally understood what he had been missing and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Congratulations, you have acquired the Concept of Force: Resonating Burst