Chapter 219: Challenge Rift

“Well now that is out of the way, I want to discuss the terms of your reward for saving Cory,” Marquis Easten said to them.

“There is no need to reward us, Marquis Easten,” Julius told the man, brushing him off.

“First off, call me Casidus you have earned that much at least. Also, there is no way I am going to let my grandson’s saviors walk away empty-handed.”

“No no, don’t worry about it.”

“Please, I insist.”

“Okay, I accept,” he said a tad too eagerly.

His gramps had always told him that you never accepted someone’s invitation the first two times. Politeness demanded you had to reject the first two and only then you could accept it the third time.

“…”

The Marquis was baffled at the quick change of his attitude, giving him a weird look.

Even his daughter and Reinera were giving him odd looks as if they couldn’t decide whether to be amused or disappointed.

Julius shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, the Marquis insisted,” he explained, trying to defend himself.

“Yeah, but you aren’t supposed to be so shameless about it,” Reinera mildly scolded him.

“I wasn’t! I waited until he offered three times before accepting,” he argued.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Yes, but you can’t just shamelessly accept it just because he offered it three times. You should accept it with some grace and humility.”

She’s probably right about that.

“Sorry,” he said to her and to the Marquis.

The man waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I was going to reward you regardless, so I don’t mind.”

He turned to see Reinera, “See? He doesn’t mind?”

He watched as she looked down and muttered to herself.

“Name your price, I will do my best to make sure that it comes true,” the noble lord promised.

Julius thought about that for a moment. He hadn’t really come in thinking about getting a reward. He was more concerned about leaving the estate after dropping Cory off without anyone noticing he was there. This whole situation wasn’t something he had been planning on.

Which is why he stood up from the comfortable seat he was lounging in and paced around. He was racking his head about what kind of reward he wanted. His go-to was to just ask for a favor and a part of him was really tempted to do so.

However, he wanted to force himself to ask for something that could help him now. Almost all of his favors have been unused and just sitting in storage. Perhaps, it would be a good thing to get something real instead.

With this being said, there was one thing that he had been wanting for some time.

He stopped pacing around and looked at the Marquis. “I want to advance to Tier 3.”

Tier 3 had been a goal Julius wanted to reach for a while now. As nice as skills and Concepts were, tiers were still the backbone of strength in this world.

No matter, how many good skills he had, there were just some barriers that he couldn’t cross with skill alone. He had realized this after Dustin had wiped the floor with him. He needed to advance to Tier 3 if he wanted to get stronger.

There was only so much he could squeeze out of Tier 2. In fact, he had been outgrowing Tier 2 for a long time now. It felt like that even when he first advanced to Tier 2. At that time he was already pushing the limits of the tier, funnily enough.

Now, he was really struggling to make any progress. His skills were pretty much capped. His soul would only be able to handle so much more. It was a big reason he suspected he wasn’t getting any notices about acquiring any new skills.

Not any powerful skills at least. If he wanted to learn some lower-ranked skills he could probably fill out the rest of his slots. However, he wanted to save them for something more important.

He had been attempting to push his physical strength to the next level. It was something he had also realized when fighting Dustin. The skill that did the most damage was [Armaments of the Arcane]. There was no doubt about that.

Dustin had taken many attacks from him head-on, however, he always made sure to avoid his constructs.

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It has been the same for a while too. In the troll rift, he had shown that his constructs were the most powerful of his attacks.

However, he was currently more of a close-range fighter. To be honest, this might have not been the best decision, logically thinking. With Julius’s mana control and epic ranked skill, he would have been an incredible long-range mage.

Yet, he found himself enjoying throwing himself into the frontlines much more than standing back chucking spikes of death. And in his opinion, enjoying his style was more important than what made the most sense.

He was a firm believer that if he loved a style he could take it much further than a style he chose for practicality.