Chapter 83: Post Advancement

Julius stood up from the mat, feeling a little off while doing so. He felt stronger, but not just in a physical sense either, he instinctually understood that his body could handle mana much better than before.

He could already feel his mana enforcing his body without activating any skills. He didn’t realize it previously, but his body was like a clogged drain. Now though, it was sparkling clean, his pipes were free from any obstruction and mana could flow through him much more efficiently. It felt like he had just undergone the world’s best detox and was feeling amazing.

He looked down at his body, fully expecting it to be covered with black sludge, but much to his pleasant surprise, there was only a fine layer of black substance. Maybe, his body transformation with [Kinetic Reinforcement] had expelled the worst of it. The smell wasn’t that bad either, it was slightly off-putting, but nothing compared to the absolutely filthy stuff he had been covered in before.

Julius still went over to the cleaning station and scrubbed the fine layer of black stuff from his body, but it only took a couple of minutes until he was sparkling clean. He did notice a few things about his physical changes. He was slightly taller now, he was probably still under six feet, but he was getting close to it. He also noticed that his muscles had slimmed out. He thought he would have looked bigger, but his muscles had compressed down instead. So while he was leaner than before, he was certain he was stronger by a good twenty percent.

The others were still patiently waiting for him to finish cleaning up. Surprisingly, even Aubrey was silent throughout the entire time, not telling Julius to hurry up or anything.

Finally, when he was finished and put on his uniform again, he walked over to the others. He saw that everyone had large grins on their face. Even Kyle was wearing a nice smile directed at Julius.

Edgar was the first one to break the silence. “See? That wasn’t so bad wasn’t it?”

Julius shook his head in amusement. “How long did I take?” He asked them.

“It was only around ten minutes,” Derek said.

“Only that long?” Julius thought he had taken much longer than ten minutes. He felt like it had been almost an hour.

“Yep, you didn’t have a lot of impurities to expel either. You are lucky, mine was absolutely vile,” Edgar said enviously.

“Yeah, I was also surprised how little impurities there were. Did you go through any treatments or rituals when you were younger?” Aubrey asked him.

“Nope, not anything that I can think of. I did go through something similar already when I acquired a body reinforcement skill that counts,” he answered.

Julius watched as the others thought about that. Surprisingly it was Derek who looked more concerned.

“You already went through a body skill metamorphosis?” Derek asked worriedly.

“Body skill metamorphosis?” Julius asked confusingly. He hadn’t heard of something like that before. Was that what he had gone through? Or did he go through something else?

This time it was Edgar who answered him. “Typically, it happens when certain body enhancement skills reach a certain rank or evolution requirements. I have one but I got it when I reached Tier 2, not Tier 1.”

“Is there a difference?” Julius asked him.

“I don’t know, Derek might know more, but I couldn’t say.” Edgar honestly told him.

Julius turned to Derek and looked to see if he had anything else to say.

Derek frowned and took his time thinking before he answered. “I don’t know if there is any real difference. There are so many factors that play into it, that it is hard to say even with research. I will say that it is supposedly much more painful at Tier 1. But it is also probably why you managed your Tier 2 advancement so well since you had already evolved some aspects of your body.”

He was right. When Julius looked back on his previous experience. It was much more painful than what he had just experienced. He also remembered it lasting much longer than his advancement to Tier 2.

“Well, what are you sitting around for? Don’t you want to test it out?” Aubrey came up to him very excited.

He did want to try out his skills with his new body. Julius had heard that after Tier 2 his body would be much better adapted to mana and his skills would see great improvements. So he couldn’t wait to see how it would change.

Julius and the others found themselves standing outside another room, this one was more like the one they had used yesterday. Unlike the advancement room, they had to wait a little bit for this room, before it opened up.

When it was finally their turn, they saw a group of third-years walk out of the room. There were two girls and two guys, all were sweating heavily and still out of breath from their training. However, when they saw Derek, Edgar, Lily, Aubrey, and Kyle, they all froze like deer in headlights.

The four of them stared at their group for longer than was comfortable, before Derek finally said, “Excuse us,” and tried to squeeze by them. Eventually, one of the guys seemed to have found his nerve, because he bowed toward Derek and introduced himself.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Derek, my name is Zachary Desmond. I am a huge fan of you, I followed all of your fights last year, it really inspired me and the others.” A blind man could see that while the guy was behaving respectfully, he was practically screaming with excitement. Julius was not going to lie, it was a little alarming to see such contained enthusiasm.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Derek much to Julius’s surprise, took the much too formal introduction in stride, almost like he was used to it. “Ah yes, you’re the oldest son of Lord Desmond correct?”