Chapter 5: The Baptism

The second the Patriarch said to begin, Julius felt a warm sensation suffuse his entire body. However, just as quickly as it came, it slowly went away. The mana started to congregate towards the center of his chest. No… not towards his chest, deeper, more like it was heading directly into his soul.

A part of himself that Julius never knew existed appeared within him. He could sense the mana from the orb start to collect within this chamber. The mana was like water vapor, slowly filling up the room.

When the entire room was filled with this mist, it stopped filling on its own. The mana coming from the orb was slowing to a trickle.

This is what Edwin meant by determining talent, Julius realized.

So, it became the challenge of how much mana Julius could fit inside before stopping. Instead of just allowing the mana to fill up on its own, he began to try to shove in as much as he could into it. However, that stopped working too. He was letting more and more slip through his fingers, and most of it wasn’t going to him but getting lost.

Panicking slightly, he decided to change methods. What if he didn’t shove the mana? What if he sucked it in, like air through his lungs? Visualizing what he imagined, he began to take deep breaths, trying to suck in as much mana with each breath. It started to fill up rapidly, and the pace increased noticeably. The room started to fill up with a thick fog rather than a fine mist.

Julius began to understand that the more mana it held, the harder it was to bring in more. It didn’t matter how much you wanted to continue. In the end, it became more about how much you can stuff into a limited space.

With that being said, Julius had a random thought. He knew from his previous memories that condensed mist was just water. Therefore, it should be theoretically possible to fill it up until it is all liquid. He was curious what his core would look like if he accumulated as much mana as he could within himself. Goal in mind, he renewed his focus and tried to condense all the mana even denser, using the momentum of what he was taking in to compress what mana he already had into one side of the room.

For a moment, nothing happened. It looked like he was just exerting himself unnecessarily. For a second, he felt a little give. It was a sign that it was possible.

However, the rate at which he was bringing in new mana was slowing down. It became similar to breathing through a thin straw. No matter how hard he pulled in, there was a hard limit. But what if he didn’t try to breathe it in? Why would he try to suck it in when he could pull it?

Julius thought about what he could adjust, and after a moment, he realized. Just like the vortex of a whirlpool, he would rip mana and pull it into himself, constantly gaining more and more momentum. Not stopping until he was entirely filled to the brim.

Image in mind, Julius started to spin the mana, mimicking a vortex. It was extremely difficult. On top of trying to continue to compress his mana into liquid form, his brain was on fire, and his soul felt like it was being wrung like a dish towel. However, it started to work. Mana now started to flood into him, wave after wave crashing against the mana already inside, making condensing it even easier. Once the vortex was spinning at a ridiculous speed, he didn’t even need to focus on it anymore. It was sustaining itself without much input from him.

Unfortunately, he started to run into a different problem. The walls of the room started to show signs of wear, and small hairline cracks appeared. Understanding that the walls containing his mana could not endure the pressure he was generating by compressing it, he started to enforce the walls themselves. He imagined his entire will infusing into the walls, smothering the mana inside, not allowing even a drop to get out.

Eventually, he noticed a pool of mana—a small pool of liquid mana in the center of the room, radiating a sense of power that was incomparable to its prior form. However, Julius was at his limit—hell, he was way beyond his limits. Only sheer stubbornness kept him going. He didn’t even try to focus on anything other than keeping it contained.

When Julius came to this world, he was given a chance, and he would not take it for granted. He had promised himself that he would never give up. He remembered what it felt like to give up, to fall to his death, to be okay with dying without a fight. Not again. He would fight for every inch, every second. He would fight.

To that end, Julius didn’t let up, not even as his soul was screaming in pain and his mind was in complete delusion. However, not even he could keep it up forever, and the comforts of darkness soon welcomed him.

***

Lukas POV

Lukas Von Hyperius was speechless. His nephew, Julius, was an unexpected addition to his family. When his youngest brother came home bearing a baby boy in his arms, he didn’t know what to think. The others thought it was well beyond the point of return for his brother.

Lukas didn’t necessarily disagree with them either. He loved his brother. Gregor was his youngest sibling and held a special place in his heart. With that said, Lukas knew he was irrational when it came to his brother. Gregor was given every chance to show the family he had changed for the better, but he failed to prove it over and over.

Despite that, he continued to act like an arrogant fool, flaunting his status at every turn. He had no sense of responsibility. Instead, he spent his time out drinking and whoring around. It was an embarrassment as a member of a Marquis house. It was only by Lukas’s word that he had managed to stay attached to the house.

However, when Lukas saw his brother bring home a child of his own, he thought it might be a sign that he would change. Except it didn’t. Gregor remained a boastful, conceited, self-important noble.

Naturally, Lukas was curious about the circumstances of Julius’s birth. Thus, he investigated what had happened. Lukas wasn’t stupid; he knew that Gregor probably had dozens of spawns running around the empire. He just didn’t know what made him decide to bring Julius home instead.

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According to everything Lukas had managed to find out, the mother was just some commoner who had caught his brother’s eye. However, with her passing, she requested that Gregor take care of their son. Lukas was surprised Gregor actually followed through, expecting him to drop the child off at some orphanage and forget about him.

When Gregor brought young Julius back to the estate, many of the Elders wanted to expel him immediately. Elder Samuel, who had a particular dislike for Gregor, was especially adamant. Fortunately for his brother and his child, Lukas managed to convince the others to allow them to remain in the family. However, Samuel put a stipulation in place, agreeing that they could, as long as they could reevaluate the situation once Julius’s baptism had passed.