Path to Transcendence

Julius found himself impressed by the efficiency of their teamwork. Tia had gotten even better at restricting monsters with her plant magic, and James had gotten a new skill, or at least evolved one of his old skills. His fellow first-year was now able to pack a much larger punch into his fire magic.

The damage was similar to Julius's previous fire constructs, making him think it was a pretty good rare skill.

Polux was a demon in close combat like usual, but he had tempered his aggression, something that had been an issue several months ago when Julius had been delving with them. Instead of always being in the monster's face and sometimes getting in the way of his teammates' attacks, he had learned how to create separation to allow them to throw in an attack or two.

This helped Polux recover some of his stamina and charge his new mana-based skill.

Nessa helped keep everyone protected at all times, never wasting mana and constantly monitoring their flank.

Joshua was truly impressive, though. While he didn't defeat the most monsters, he commanded the rest of them with such precision. He always knew the correct time to push the aggression and when they needed to just be patient.

He ensured that nobody overextended and used the most optimal amounts of mana to help the others take down their opponents with minimal effort.

While the boy hadn't made that many large increases in pure power, he had, without a doubt, improved his skills as a leader and as a director of the battlefield.

Julius wouldn't be surprised to learn that Joshua had acquired some skills that helped him with this.

After he watched the team slaughter the last group of wolves, he looked at Professor Rowe, who had a weird expression on his face.

"Is something wrong?" He asked the man.

"I'm not sure. But I spotted a couple of unique variants in that last group. Usually, they spawn pretty rarely, and I haven't ever seen more than two of them in a single pack before," Professor Rowe said with a frown on his face.

"Is that a bad thing?" Reinera asked. The three of them were standing a bit away from the others who were actually fighting. Since they were mainly here as supervisors, they gave them some space, which also allowed them to speak amongst each other without anyone overhearing.

"I wouldn't say it's a particularly bad thing. But it is somewhat odd to see. That usually means something within the rift has changed," Professor Rowe explained to her.

"Aren't the rifts heavily regulated, though, so that doesn't happen?" Reinera asked.

"Yeah, but that doesn't always work. The issue with regulating a rift that has hundreds of students delving into it is that you can't predict how much mana or other kinds of energy the rift will absorb. We do our best to estimate how many groups need to be killed in order to keep the balance, but it's still difficult."

"So why is the appearance of multiple variants a weird thing?"

Professor Rowe scratched his chin. "Because it's likely something else more drastic has occurred within the rift, and the variants are just the symptom of it."

"What are we going to do then?" Julius asked after he glanced over at the others, who were in the middle of reviewing their fight and making adjustments.

"The safe thing would be to leave and then come back to investigate further," Professor Rowe said softly.

Julius nodded his head. He agreed with the professor, if there was anything wrong with the rift, he didn't feel good about them all staying in there. He thought that the three of them would be fine, but the others were still Tier 2 and if something happened, it was hard to predict how well they would fare.

***

The others weren't so happy when they found out that their delve would be cut short. However, after Professor Rowe gave them a quick explanation of why he made that choice, they quieted down.

Additionally, Julius found himself being surprised by Professor Rowe's next words to him.

"Would you two like to join me?" He asked.

Reinera looked surprised. "You want us to join you? Are you planning to head back in right now?"

"I don't see a reason to wait any further. If something is happening, I would much rather find out now than later," Professor Rowe explained to her.

"And you're okay with us coming with you?" Reinera asked hesitantly.

"We left mainly for their benefit," he said while pointing at the others. "You both are Tier 3 and should be able to handle anything that the rift might throw at us if there is something wrong. Another set of eyes never hurt anyone when investigating rifts. I also think this could be a good opportunity for me to do a quick examination and see if you are ready for Tier 3 rifts. "

Julius perked up upon hearing that.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"You mean if we come along, then you will give us approval to enter higher-ranked rifts?"

"Well, it depends on what we find in there. But yes, if there is a problem in there and you two handle it appropriately, I will give you both permission."

"We accept!" Reinera exclaimed instantly, not even asking about Julius's opinion. Although he would have said yes, too, so she wasn't exactly wrong.

Professor Rowe grinned. "I had a feeling you might feel that way. Let's head in and take a closer look, huh?"

***

When they re-entered the rift, Julius made sure to take a closer look around. It was the same forest environment as usual, and he didn't detect anything approaching them.

Professor Rowe spoke up. "If there is anything wrong with the rift, it is going to be closer to the center. We should head there first."

Julius and Reinera nodded at the man and followed him as he headed deeper into the forest.

They quickly passed the area that they had been around before and walked by several signs that said 'restricted area'.

On their way, they came across several wolf monsters, and unlike scaring them off like Julius expected Professor Rowe to do, the man gestured them toward the monsters.

Realizing what he was telling them, Julius shrugged his shoulders and looked over at Reinera.

"You want to handle them?"

She crinkled her forehead. "Sure, unless you want to take care of them yourself."

He shook his head at her. "You mentioned that you wanted to test a skill out several days ago, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to see how it works on a real enemy."

She had got a new skill and the other night she had talked to him about wanting to see how it worked on a living opponent.

She grinned at him. "Wish me luck," she said while preparing her skill. He could feel some sort of manipulation of mana coursing through the air towards the approaching wolves.

Then, with one final pulse, he watched as a series of brilliant white chains formed and wrapped around two of the wolves.

Two more had avoided the chains, but she quickly dispatched them with a couple spears of light to the chest, killing them instantly.

The other two who were still trapped, struggled desperately to escape, but the chains were much to tough for them. He sensed some sort of Concept compressed into them, which must have made them more sturdy than they would appear to be.

He could also tell that it was a new skill because she wasn't quite familiar with it, like she was with her other skills. He doubted many would notice it, but there were times when the mana to one of the chains would be interrupted, but Reinera, being the genius she was with mana control, quickly fixed it.

Then, in a complicated weave of mana, the chains made of light wrapped themselves around the wolves' throats and constricted like a python.

The monsters struggled even more, but it was already too late. They died not long after.

Reinera quickly manipulated some mana and tore the cores out of the monsters before looking back toward him, giving him a very satisfied look.

"What did you think?" She asked him with a hopeful look.

He shrugged and played cool. "Not bad."

He hid his grin when she pouted at him.

***

As they made their way deeper into the rift, there were even more signs that something had changed within it.

There was a gradual shift in the feeling of the rift. This powerful mana radiated from the center, unlike anything he had ever seen before from a rift.

Professor Rowe definitely noticed this too, as the man took out several tools from his storage ring and started to measure something on them.

With these changes and as they made their way deeper into the rift, there were more encounters with monsters. This time, it wasn't just wolves.

Or maybe they had been wolves, but they were now bipedal creatures. Not only that, but they had gotten significantly stronger than before. He would estimate that they were on the edge of Tier 2.

Seeing these changes, they all started believing that something was happening. That feeling of wrongness was quickly being confirmed before their very eyes.

On the bright side, these more powerful monsters gave Reinera a better opportunity to test out her new skill. While it was nice to see how they worked on a real-life enemy, the fact remained that the other wolves were too weak to get a good gauge on how powerful they were.

However, these new monsters actually did a good job of testing the strength of these chains. Their physical abilities were quite high for Tier 2 and rivaled some of the Tier 3s he had come across.

Being the amazing friend he was, he let her deal with most of the monsters they came across, it was only once in a while that he chose to punch a monster in the face if it got too close to him.

Professor Rowe just watched on calmly. To Julius, the man seemed much more focused on finding out the reason for the sudden changes and letting them deal with the monsters.

Eventually, they came across an interesting scene.

It was a large clearing in the forest, but what had caught all of their attention was the way the trees looked. These trees had changed from their normal deep brown bark and green foliage to a darker, almost silver color.

"Do you think it has something to do with the change in monsters?" Reinera asked their professor.

"Certainly seems that way," Professor Rowe said as he walked up to a random tree and placed his hand on it.

Julius took the time to use his senses to investigate as well. It was weird, but he could have sworn that he felt some kind of mana that he had only felt from those who used some sort of metal magic.

It would definitely explain the silverish color of the trees.

However, before he could examine the trees much further, his perception skill pinged an incoming monster coming towards them from ahead.

However, unlike the wolves or even the newer versions of the wolves, this one was different.

He wasn't the only person to sense it either and he saw Reinera already preparing her skills. She must have already realized the same thing as he did because she began the process of throwing out chains.

When he spotted it with his two eyes, he was quite surprised because the creature itself was quite adorable. It was a small monster, much smaller than most he had come across. If he had to say, he would compare it to a larger version of a squirrel.

But instead of a reddish brown coat, it was covered in a dark silver sheen, glimmering in the soft sunlight that cascaded through the trees.

Moreover, what was the biggest surprise was that this monster wasn't a Tier 2, like one would expect from a Tier 2 rift. No, this was a genuine Tier 3 monster.

This was no longer just a simple issue, but was quickly becoming much larger than he thought.

What the hell was going on? He thought to himself with a frown.