Chapter 185: Not Everyone Is Fooled

With Lily currently being a dead end until she can find anything with her contacts, he started to entertain his other idea. He still had the favor from Lord Lagos in his back pocket. However, he didn’t know how much he could ask for.

This wasn’t a simple favor like gaining rift access, this was a favor that could potentially put Lord Lagos in a bad spot if anyone from House Greyson noticed the lord investigating their activities in Heston.

There was also still the important question of what he was going to do with whatever information he gained. So what if House Greyson was doing something in Heston? Was he planning to interfere with them just to spite them?

He didn’t know the answer to that question. It was good to remind himself that by interfering he would be putting himself into the crosshairs of House Greyson. He had gotten lucky that the other two men he had killed hadn’t alerted anyone of Julius. Or at least, he didn’t think so. He didn’t get that sort of feeling from them. Even if they did, it’s not like they really had much to go off of.

At most, they would have a description of a young man with a black cloth mask who beat up their thugs.

Actually, now that I think about it, the piece of cloth burned up in the blast. I am going to have to ask Dante to make me a new one or a different version of it. He might groan and complain about it, but I think he will secretly be happy to do so, Julius thought to himself with a grin.

Still, it would be smart of him to be patient and not rush into things. For now, he was satisfied with just finding out what House Greyson was doing. He would make his decision of what he would do after he asked Declan.

Either way, he still had to go and tell Declan the good news. So he could discuss it with him while he did that. He also wanted to see if Declan would be willing to give him the rift access card back.

While he didn’t necessarily need it right now considering his usage of the suppression bracelet. His rift craving was currently satisfied with the Tier 2 rifts he went on in Applied Combat. Although, he would rather have something like that on hand just in case he did have the urge to go delving into a Tier 3 rift. Life was unpredictable and perhaps he would find himself wanting to fight stronger monsters.

Look at me, I am talking about solo delving a Tier 3 rift like it is a Thursday afternoon. How cocky have I gotten? He joked to himself. While he was joking, he was very aware of the fact that some Tier 3 almost killed him not too long ago. He was going to be much more careful in the future.

Or at least attempt to. He was well aware of his bad habits and prideful behavior, so it wouldn’t astonish him if he got himself into a similar situation down the line.

***

The week went by pretty smoothly. Julius and his team ended up delving several more times. Each one was more successful than the last. They had been grouped together with several other teams at that time. And he was pretty confident that their team was one of the better ones in their year.

It wasn’t that astounding when he thought about it deeper. They had one of the best pure warrior fighters in their year in Polux, Joshua was considered one of the top elites of the class as well along with Tia, additionally, James and Nessa were no slouches either.

In fact, Julius was constantly impressed with their skill. Both of them had more supportive roles like Julius, but they did them very well. James was an unselfish teammate who never tried to kill or steal monsters from anyone, just using his fire magic as an effective disruptor in battle. Whereas Nessa had really good decision-making skills. She didn’t take too much time either, she would give up a barrier if she knew she was just wasting mana and didn’t buff Julius or Polux if she thought they didn’t need it.

He was very happy with their team. Joshua did a good job configuring it together. Julius made sure to compliment the boy whenever he had the chance.

It was Friday and they had finished all of their dinner. However, Joshua had the idea that they should get together and do some training. Nobody had any arguments against it either. They all got along well and every one of them wanted to improve. So the fact that this would kill several birds with one stone.

Julius had just left his older friends and was on his way to the first-year training hall. When he got there, he was immediately reminded of the time that he blew a hole in the enchantments and promised himself not to do that again.

As he approached, everyone else was already there waiting for him. Nessa and Tia were both laughing with one another, the two of them had become quick friends as the only two girls on the team. Where James and Joshua were already good friends. Polux and Julius were more of the loners of the group.

Nessa saw him first. She waved at him. “Hey, we missed you at dinner. Where do you go off to?”

Joshua was the one who answered for him. “He eats at the upperclassmen cafeteria with his older friends. Though, I am still a little bit jealous that he gets to eat there as a first year.”

Nessa’s eyes widened. “Really? You eat at the upperclassmen cafeteria? You are so lucky, we got to deal with so much chaos in the first-year cafeteria that I often grab my food to go,” she complained with a pout.

“I know. I wish I could eat there,” James said enviously.

“There are no rules against it,” Julius reminded the guy.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Speak for yourself. I tried to go for breakfast one morning and got bullied by some third-years the entire time. I don’t know how you do it, but I am going to avoid that harassment, thank you very much,” James said.

“Yeah and my cousin would beat me to a pulp if she saw me hanging out there,” Joshua said solemnly.

Julius just shook his head amusedly and headed into an empty room. The others quickly followed him and they got started warming up.

Tia, Nessa, Joshua, and James were working on a new idea Joshua had come up with. It revolved around using Tia’s vines and Nessa’s barriers to create a suffocating containment. This would allow James and Joshua to unleash a much more powerful attack on their opponents. They each had a couple of skills that allowed them to output large blasts of damage, but it took a considerable amount of time to prepare and they needed for the enemies to be relatively still.

James had a ritual-type bombardment skill. It was very impressive for a Tier 2 when it came to sheer destruction. It just took him too long for it to be that practical in a fast-paced battle. Joshua had a similar skill that used water to erode and compress whatever was within its vicinity.

On the other hand, Polux and Julius were doing some light sparring with barely any physical enhancement on.