Path to Transcendence

The caravan didn't actually need to head into Willow's Front as he had originally believed. In fact, they didn't even get within the smaller walls surrounding the town. Instead, only a few wagons ended going through the inspection guards and unloading their goods. While the rest of them continued on their way to Aspinith, the next town on their route.

So far they had not run into many other problems. Other than the occasional group of monsters, it was quite peaceful. Even the monsters weren't that disruptive. The mages took care of them before they even managed to get close, so it wasn't like any of the warriors were tiring themselves out fighting monsters either.

And since Julius was technically a 'warrior' that meant he was also left to observe the mages having their fun.

Even though he was okay with keeping his abilities quiet for the time being, he couldn't help but want to stretch his legs a little bit. The cooking was helping him stay somewhat busy, but he didn't know what else to do in the meantime.

In the end, he decided to use his free time reading from the small collection of books he had tucked away in his storage ring. It wasn't as exciting, but he hadn't read in a while so it was an unexpected treat nonetheless.

***

"Everyone get ready," George called out suddenly.

Julius looked up to see everyone getting up swiftly. The man's tone was different than usual. This time it felt more urgent.

Thus, Julius closed the book he was reading softly and put it away into his ring before looking at where George was focusing his attention. It wasn't like Julius hadn't noticed them, but he didn't think there was anything out of the ordinary.

Sure it was quite a crowd of monsters, but it wasn't like something their caravan hadn't dealt with many times at this point.

"What's wrong?" Stephanie asked, also noticing George's tone.

"A group of Null Fiends are approaching fast," he said while getting out of the wagon. Stephanie's face turned a bit more anxious but her voice didn't waver.

"How many and how strong?"

"A few dozen and all Tier 3 except for one who is probably Tier 4," George said, his eyes not leaving the direction where he sensed the monsters.

"Null Fiends approaching from the south!" Matt suddenly hollered out for the entire Caravan to hear.

"What the hell are Null Fiends?" He asked Beck who was preparing his armor for the first time since he met the man.

"You don't know what Null Fiends are? I thought you grew up around Blumand?" The man asked, confused.

"No, I have no clue. What are they?"

The man put on the last piece of his armor and explained. "They are some of the more dangerous monsters that roam this region. They are powerful for their tier and have the annoying ability to absorb mana. So the only effective way to deal with them is to either overwhelm their absorption or to fight them with swords."

"So, can they absorb everything made with mana?" He asked.

"No, but if you attack them with a pure mana attack like most of our mages do, they will simply absorb it and use it to empower their attacks. The best option is to use physical-based attacks. They can still absorb some mana if the attack uses mana but their ability to do so will be heavily limited," Beck quickly explained before hopping out of the wagon.

"Warriors are the best option to fight them. Otherwise, we will just waste a lot of mana," Stephanie said to him while also getting out of the wagon.

Julius hopped out, following the two of them. "What kind of attacks do they have?"

"They have a pretty simple but powerful attack that uses plain blasts of mana. They are also pretty beefy on top of their mana absorption. But there are several variations of them, so don't expect all of them to be the same. They might have a healer or assassin in their midst so be mindful," she advised him.

Julius was about to ask another question but was distracted by the monsters who made their way over the hill.

Fiends was a proper name for what he saw. Tall humanoid creatures covered in glowing red runes. Their faces looked more akin to reptiles and even from this distance, looked distinctly menacing.

He heard Rolus giving directions to various teams from where he was. "I want all mages to focus on supporting our warriors. Don't bother wasting your mana to attack them unless you have the proper spell to do so, it will just give them more mana to attack us with."

"I will focus on drawing the Tier 4 away from the battle and deal with it so that you don't have to worry about being collateral. While I am, stay together with your teammates as much as possible. If you don't have a team, then stay with the group I placed you with. But remember that the most important goal is to keep the others in the caravan safe. Is that understood?"

A resounding yell of affirmatives rang throughout the caravan before they all collectively went to meet the incoming monsters before they could reach the wagons.

Julius kept up with the others. Beck was bearing a shield in one arm as he easily led their group in front with Matt and Aaron a step behind him.

It would seem I will be getting a chance to stretch my legs, after all, he thought giddily.

***

Stephanie POV

Null Fiends? Really? She thought to herself exasperatedly.

Talk about awful luck. Null Fiends were always annoying to deal with. Not only were they powerful, but their mana absorption skill was such a dangerous ability. They weren't like the normal rabble they easily dealt with on their way here.

Regardless, she wasn't too worried. There were a lot of quality fighters here and her team had taken care of their share of Null Fiends in the past. Matt, Aaron, and Beck should be able to take care of them without getting hurt.

The only person she was worried about was Julius. According to him, he had never even heard of a Null Fiend before, which was slightly worrying.

As a newly advanced Tier 3, going against monsters who had their own Concepts would be especially dangerous. Her and the rest of her team all had their own Concepts which allowed them to fight against the monster's mana absorption, but he might find it very difficult to fight back against the monster's ability.

She would make sure to keep an eye on the kid even if it meant that some of the others got a bit more beat up in the meantime. They would understand. They couldn't' allow their dedicated cook to die here. Nobody wanted to go back to Beck's cooking.

She shuddered just thinking about it.

"Be careful of the mana absorption, even if you attack with physical attacks, just being near them will let them draw mana out of you. For now, stay near me, you can see how we fight and slot yourself in wherever you feel comfortable," she said to him while running beside him.

He turned to her with a weirdly excited glint in his eyes. "Thanks, I will be careful," he said with a grin.

She didn't know why he was acting so excited. He should be a bit more worried considering what kind of monsters they were about to fight. After all, she didn't doubt they would find at least one Null Fiend who had multiple Concepts. Those were the most annoying ones to deal with.

However, his ignorance of who Null Fiends were probably helped his nerves, so she didn't bother trying to scare him. It would only make him more nervous and that was potentially much more dangerous.

She did note that the boy was keeping up very well all things considered. He was matching pace with them with ease. Although they weren't going as fast as they could, they were all still very strong Tier 3s. Even she had better physical abilities than most healers. So it was to his credit that he wasn't displaying any exertion as they made their way to the monsters.
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Just as they were about to clash with the fiends, she felt a bunch of skills activate from all of the other teams including her own.

While her debuff skills wouldn't be effective on these monsters, some of the warriors had their own taunting or debuff attacks that didn't rely on pure mana. Beck, in fact, had a very powerful taunting skill that would cause confusion and anger within his foes.

Matt also had a skill that used his aura to punish his enemies. It was the same skill that he used to buff his teammates, but could also be used to hurt his opponents.

While the monsters were caught off guard by these debuffs, the group tore through them. Nobody on their team held back. Beck practically crushed two of them in a single blow with the shield blast he had been building up during the charge.

Matt removed the arms and legs of two of them. While Aaron beat down another one with his hammer.

The other teams were also having success. And it was exactly what she expected from a bunch of strong teams. She knew that most of them were only here because of the money, but they were kind of in a similar boat so she couldn't judge. She was just grateful they weren't surrounded with a bunch of people who couldn't handle themselves. That had happened too many times in the past.

She threw out a bunch of buffs to everyone within her sphere of influence. It would invigorate them as well as give them a pretty nice boost to their passive regeneration. She didn't use her buff for their defenses quite yet. She wanted to wait for a better time to do so because at the moment they didn't need it.

The one person she kept an eye on was Julius who was charging toward a fiend. Good mana control or not, dealing with a strong monster like a Null Fiend was totally different. Still, she didn't stop him even though he was probably outmatched. It would be a good chance for him to get some experience, plus she was ready to jump in at any moment's notice.

The boy shockingly didn't have any weapon or any armor. For a close combat fighter, that was uncommon.

But she did notice some sort of mana based defense surround the boy along with some type of body enhancement skill and shook her head. Since it was mana-based, the fiends would use that as a channel to steal his mana away.

She was about to step in and help him but held herself back when she noticed that the fiend wasn't taking any mana at all. She paused and made double sure that it wasn't, but a deeper examination only reaffirmed it.

How is he stopping it from taking his mana? Does he have a Concept after all? Or is it some sort of skill?

That wasn't the end of her surprise though. The young boy didn't show the least bit of fear or panic as the fiend slashed a lightning-fast claw at his face. He merely lowered his head and took a step forward.

It was almost like teleportation, one moment he was in front of the monster and the next he was behind it in its blind spot.

She had originally believed that Julius was a pure fire affinity user much like Beck. But it would seem that she was wrong because the boy blasted a fist of kinetic energy right into the ribcage of the Null Fiend.

A kinetic affinity was not commonly seen but it was a warrior's dream affinity. It had almost no long-range applications or flexibility. But it excelled in one area. Pure close combat brutality.

Unfortunately for Julius, it would seem that his strike wasn't quite strong enough to take out the Null Fiend in one shot, but it didn't mean he stopped. No, just as the Null Fiend was blasted off its feet, Julius was right on top of it.

He didn't allow it a second to breathe and hammered several more strikes into the back of the fallen monster's skull, putting it down with cold-blooded ferocity. Only taking a small slash to the arm in return.

She immediately sent out a small pulse of life mana to the boy, that healed the bleeding gash in seconds and was rewarded by an appreciative nod from the boy before he leapt back into the action with the same enthusiastic grin.

Perhaps, I don't have to worry about him as much as I thought I would, she amended her previous thoughts with a chuckle.