Path to Transcendence

He was feeling a lot more comfortable using his healing skill on others. His little experimentation with Erek via [Phoenix’s Mark] confirmed that the skill was indeed still able to heal others. Sure, Erek might have turned into a cancerous blob of flesh at the end, but that was only because Julius twisted and manipulated the skill in such a way.

In fact, the initial moments of the healing demonstrated its quality and well-structured base to work from. [Phoenix Incarnate] might have been a more powerful skill and one that was a little more difficult to control properly, but he could tell right away that the skill had evolved, taking into consideration his previous healing of other people.

Compared to [Phoenix Renewal], his new legendary skill appeared like it was actually meant to be used on others. It all came down to whether he could control the skill and the flow of life mana. But thankfully, he had Drasil to help him out. With the two of them working together, he had a good feeling that they would be able to remove the seed and heal her without any lasting damage.

Then again, it would be nice to try it on someone else beforehand. There was still a pretty significant risk in doing this. But Selene seemed adamant to get the seed out of her as soon as possible.

He had her lie down on a table and quickly located the Heartburst Seed. It was just like his, and he could feel it twist into her flesh, its roots extending throughout her chest. Now that she mentioned it, he noticed a weird field surrounding it. To his mana senses, it looked blurry and an unidentifiable clump of mana.

Drasil appeared over his shoulder. He wasn’t in his orb form either; the little guy had been working hard to control his form and finally managed to manifest without his wings. Though to be honest, he didn’t look all that different from his usual form. He was still the same humanoid shape, only this time around, he was wearing a long, billowing cloak made of what looked like leaves.

It would seem that Drasil thought wearing a cloak was considered a good disguise.

However, Julius didn’t think it was time, nor did he have the heart to mention this, and instead praised the little spirit. “Nicely done,” he said, and offered a small orb of mana, which Drasil took with a grateful coo, the hood covering his face shifting back a little so he could suck on it.

Selene lifted her head from the table and stared at Drasil with sparkles in her eyes. “Is this his true form?” she asked excitedly. All of her previous nervousness seemed to be gone in the face of an adorable Drasil.

Julius chuckled. “Sort of.”

“Cute,” she mumbled quietly.

He stifled a laugh and looked over at Drasil, who was playfully flapping his cloak with his tiny hands. Now that he thought about it, Drasil looked like a miniature reaper with the cloak. The only thing he was missing was a scythe.

“Are you ready?” he asked her.

“You’ve already located it?” she asked with surprise.

“Yeah, I told you I have a skill that helps me out. Are you still sure you want to go through with this?”

She pressed her lips tightly, and her brows scrunched up. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

He nodded and removed his blanket from his dimensional space. He also took out his lunchbox in preparation in case he needed more mana. He didn’t think he’d need it, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared.

“I’m starting,” he warned her. Drasil had already hopped over and was standing on her stomach, both of his hands placed on her exposed skin.

She nodded and closed her eyes when he placed his hand over her chest. He couldn’t be as rough or careless as he’d been with himself. Just because she could handle the life mana didn’t mean he could just ram his entire arm into her chest as he did for his own seed.

He took control of some mana, carefully compressing and molding it into a scalpel. Then Drasil sent a burst of life mana into her; he hoped this would blunt some of the pain. The scalpel was infused with his Concept of Sharpness, so it had no trouble cutting through her skin. She grunted, but was otherwise fine.

The other issue was how he would extract the seed from her chest. But back on Earth, he was somewhat of an expert when it came to crane-grabbing games. He created a small pronged crane and created several other constructs to keep the skin peeled open.

The flesh had long healed over the Heartburst Seed, and so he was forced to remove it. This was obviously painful, and despite her best efforts to stay still, she started to shake. He wasn’t concerned, though, and activated [Field of the Shattered Will]. The field enveloped her and served as a restraint. She was completely immobilized now.

When he plunged the crane into her chest, he used his aura to carefully control its movements and guided the construct to the seed. [Calm Before Ruin] was fully active, his mind was honed to a razor’s edge, and not a single detail was missed. He mentally went through the checklist of what he needed to do. Freya’s comforting voice was whispering in his ear with each movement.

He did a really good job of avoiding the seed's roots and any early alarms he might have set off. But when he finally grabbed hold of the seed, he felt something activate. He immediately crushed it with as much ruinous aura and ripped the seed from her chest.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

She let out a pained cry and desperately thrashed against the restraints, but he held her still. When he removed the seed he immediately crushed within his palm, the small explosion tore into his hand, making a mess out of it, but he quickly healed that with his healing skill.

He was more concerned with Selene. He had taken out the seed before it could explode in her chest, but he felt several of the roots get stuck in her chest, and without the core of the seed, they were dissolving into the same powerful poison he experienced.

Drasil was already healing her as much as he could, but it wasn’t enough. So Julius stepped in, activated the [Phoenix Mark] he had placed on her, and began channeling his healing skill into her flesh.

The effect was instantaneous, and her chest glowed bright green as flashes of red surged through her skin. The healing skill came across something powerful, trying to prevent it from working. It was just like he’d experienced when he removed his own Heartburst Seed.

And just like how it hadn’t been enough to stop [Phoenix Incarnate] before, it wasn’t enough to stop it now. His healing skill completely overwhelmed the effect, rushing into her body. He made sure that it didn’t completely oversaturate her body with healing magic. He didn’t want to kill her via mana overload. That would suck.

Thankfully, Drasil helped with that. His healing was different from Julius’s, and the two combined were truly a powerful fusion of healing magic. He watched as the wound on her chest closed within a second, and the flowing blood was stemmed to a halt.

[Phoenix Incarnate] was truly proving its worth as a legendary skill.

He didn’t become complacent, though. The important part was over; now he was more concerned about the poison running rampant through her body.

“Sorry,” he mumbled to her with a wince and proceeded to send buckets of his aura directly into her chest, where he sensed the poison. The poison was a powerful one, which meant he didn’t know if his healing skill alone would be enough. Though it was better safe than sorry.

Typically, getting something ripped out of your chest was more painful than getting an aura pushed into your body. Unfortunately, that only applied to normal auras. Julius’s ruinous aura wasn’t normal, and hence it was extremely painful.

She let out a strangled howl as the ruinous aura tore through her body. Luckily, he had pretty good control over it and managed to target only the poison. Still, there was bound to be some incidental damage.

It took almost ten whole seconds for him to rid the poison from her body. Her own body was helping out too, which made things easier. And after another whole minute of sending constant pulses of life mana into her, she finally stopped straining against his kinetic energy.

He made sure to keep sending life mana through the mark, but he was pretty sure she was good now. The seed was gone, and he didn’t detect any remnants of it either.

She wasn’t waking up, though. She was passed out, mouth open.

He quickly clothed her and wrapped his blanket around her shoulders. He also left some food from his lunchbox next to her when she woke up. He could tell that her mana channels and body had been strained by the rush of life mana. Hopefully, it would help her heal from it.

Drasil was still on top of her chest, pressing his palms against her face. His cute little cloak was rustling slightly and tickling her nose.

Julius just sat back, cleaned himself up, and started to munch on a morning bun. He deserved it after such a long night and early morning.

The pastry was from one of the bakeries in Goldmere. It was sort of like a croissant, made with a lot of sugar and warm spices. Which also meant it was extremely delicious, and he inhaled two of them before he came up for air.

He wiped the crumbs from his mouth and stopped himself from grabbing a third. Instead, he made himself a small cup of tea and sat patiently, waiting for Selene to wake up.

***

Selene POV

When she finally woke up, she felt weirdly amazing. Not a single bit of her body was in pain, and to make things even better, she was greeted by the cutest little spirit whose palms were placed on each of her cheeks.

Drasil whistled at her and gave her nose a soft tap.

“Aren’t you a handsome little fella,” she said with a warm smile.

Drasil preened and bent to the side before handing her something. She looked at it and saw what appeared to be a cup of soup.

“Did you make this?” she asked Julius, who was on the other side of the room, reading a book and drinking tea.

“No, it's something from one of my items,” he responded with a brief glance toward her. “How are you feeling?”

She sat up, carefully cradling Drasil so that he didn’t go flying off. “I feel really good, suspiciously so considering what we just did. I didn’t know you had a healing skill like that hidden away.”

What she didn’t say was that his healing skill scared the shit out of her. She had never come across such a powerful healing skill, not even back at the Verdant Willow Sect. It was just raw healing power, and even more terrifying was that she was skilled enough to realize that he’d been holding back for her sake.

She had never experienced a healing skill that was so dense and interwoven with concepts of life and death. If she didn’t know any better, it was like she had been healed by a phoenix or something.

But that would be insane. Phoenixes were rarer than dragons. Skills related to phoenixes were just as rare. She had only heard rumors about people with such skills. People like the King of Undying Flames or the Saint of Winter.

The King of Undying Flames was revered for his nigh-immortality. Whereas the Saint of Winter was someone she had only heard about from her uncle. Apparently, he had met her at one point.

She stared at him; her curiosity was already piqued the moment she met him. But now she was desperate to figure out who he was and, more importantly, whether or not he could help her with her own healing skills.

She shook her head. That was a problem for later.

She took the cup of soup in her hands. It didn’t look like much, just a simple golden yellow stock with a few vegetables inside. She didn’t really smell much from it, but still sipped it. Her eyes bulged the moment her lips touched the broth, and she stared at the cup in shock.

How was something this simple, so delicious?

Not only that, but she felt it was made up of dense life mana, healing her with every sip she took. She glanced over at Julius, who was relaxing casually as he sipped his tea.

Who was he?