Path to Transcendence-Chapter 301: Polluted Lake

“How are we going to get it out of there?” Reinera asked their professor while staring at the large lake in front of them.

After the battle, the three of them had gotten closer to the lake and investigated what might have happened to it. They were all pretty certain that some sort of item or treasure was somewhere in the middle of the lake. However, it was very difficult to detect where it might be placed exactly.

For all they knew, it could be directly in the center of the deepest part of the lake or merely placed in one of the shallow sections.

The lake had done an excellent at defusing the mana equally through the water. Thus, it was all just a guessing game.

Julius might have been able to detect it with [Spatial Perception] if he were close enough, but the lake was pretty big, and the center of it was outside his range, even if he went over to the other side.

If only he could fly…

“Actually, I might have an idea,” he said suddenly.

Professor Rowe looked over at him with interest. “What’s that?”

“If I can scan over the water, I might be able to find out where this object is. Regardless, it is still predicated on something being down there in the first place,” he explained quickly.

“You would be able to do that? What about the mana rich water? Wouldn’t that impact your ability to sense through its depths?” The professor asked, looking very much confused at Julius’s bold claim, but also genuinely curious.

He didn’t blame the man for his skepticism either. If the man himself couldn’t sense the object, then how could Julius proclaim he could? After all, Professor Rowe was still a certified Tier 4.

“My perception skill doesn’t only rely on mana,” he said simply, not intending to explain too much about [Spatial Perception]. Of course, Reinera already knew about his insane perception, so it wasn’t news to her.

Professor Rowe looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face. “Alrighty then, I guess I can create a barrier under your feet if you want to use that to hover above the water,” he offered to Julius.

That actually would work out great. This way, it would let him hide his mana construct abilities. After all, while he wasn’t hiding that he was strong, he still wanted people to believe that he was a warrior and not a mage.

More importantly, though, using pure mana and willpower to fly was an impressive feat, according to Richard and Rebecca. Not every mage was able to do that. He was much more concerned about that.

So, without further ado, Professor Rowe created a nice thick barrier of mana just underneath his feet. It was almost like a small boat and was very sturdy. He believed that even if he struck this thing pretty hard, it would take some time to crack it.

Thus, it made him feel much safer as he was hovering over the lake. He didn’t wish to fall in. They had no clue what any prolonged exposure to this mana would do to people. It didn’t feel that awful, but it was hard to tell unless one of them decided to take a dip in it, and he wasn’t going to be volunteering anytime soon.

It took a while because of the sheer size of the lake, but when he was scanning the center of the lake, he thought he sensed something. He waved his hand at Professor Rowe to signal to stop the makeshift boat.

He had already stopped to check something before, but this time he really thought he sensed something. It was just really hard with water this condensed with foreign mana. It affected his [Spatial Perception] skill enough to make it difficult. It was like looking through a foggy bottle, and it took him immense concentration to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anything.

Sure enough, he found something. It wasn’t a very large object, probably only around the size of his hand, but he was certain that it was what they were looking for.

So with a deft control of his aura, he wrapped this object up and brought it to the surface, where he was able to see what it exactly looked like for the first time.

He could have used his still-developing ability to control ambient mana, but in this particular case, he didn’t want to risk damaging the object or potentially setting something off. Thus, he felt much more comfortable using his aura control to grab it.

He frowned as a silver ore-like object appeared, and now that there wasn’t any mana-rich water surrounding it, he was able to feel a powerful source of mana radiating from the ore.

He had no idea what this thing was, but whatever it was, he doubted it was created by this rift and further proved their theory that this thing was artificially placed here. He didn’t think a Tier 2 rift would be able to create such a powerful object. It felt like something a high-level Tier 3 rift or possibly a Tier 4 rift would have.

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When he got back to the shoreline where Reinera and Professor Rowe were waiting for him, he showed them what he had found.

“Do you know what this is?” He asked Professor Rowe.

The man in question was staring at the object with a very severe frown. Julius observed as the man took out a couple of tools from his storage ring and started to scan the ore with them. After a few moments, the man finally sighed and shook his head in disbelief.

“What is it?” Reinera asked.

Their professor looked at them with a grimace. “This is a piece of Tier 4 Adremite Ore, a very dangerous ore that infects its surrounding area with its mana. Usually, it wouldn’t be able to affect a diverse environment like this as it is typically found deep in mountains and only infects other common ores, but someone must have done something to it so that it could infect this body of water.”

“What do you mean they did something to it? How could an ore, even if it's a Tier 4 ore, cause this level of change?”

The professor shrugged his shoulders and looked over at the lake, which was still quite silver despite them removing the object. “It’s like they enchanted it or perhaps changed the ore with alchemical methods. Whatever it is now, it’s no longer a simple ore. It is closer to an enchanted item or weapon than a piece of metal.”

***

Once they figured out the origin of the problem, they left the rift, making sure they took the ore with them. Professor Rowe had secured it and was going to make sure that it would be thoroughly investigated. He also shut the entire rift down for the time being, even mentioning the possibility of clearing the rift if it wasn’t salvageable.

What Julius was more worried about was the fact that this was the second time that he had seen signs of someone other than the staff messing with the school’s rifts. Or perhaps, it was someone who was a part of the staff. It would certainly explain how they were able to get access.

It was hard to imagine what kind of problems could have arisen if they hadn’t investigated the rift. If a bunch of Tier 2 students came into the rift and came across some of the Tier 3 beasts, it could have ended in their deaths.

Shaking his head to clear those negative thoughts, he walked alongside Reinera.

“Do you think it's the same people who messed with our rift before?” She asked him suddenly.

He turned to her and noticed that she had an uncomfortable look on her face.

“What? Do you think you were being targeted again?” He asked her with pressed lips.

She shook her head. “No, if they were going to target me, it wouldn’t be in a Tier 2 rift. They would not even expect me to go into one. But I do think these events are connected in some way.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Speaking of going into a rift, I was surprised that you were even allowed to enter the Tier 2 one. I thought that you would have had more restrictions on you putting yourself in any kind of danger,” he said.

She turned to him and gave him a smirk. “I wasn’t supposed to. Amelia gave me very specific instructions not to delve into any rifts without her, but she was busy today, and I snuck away. However, in my defense, I wasn’t looking to delve; I was only going to ask about how I am supposed to get access to Tier 3 rifts.”

“And she’s fine with that?”

“No, but even my family understands that there is no point in me attending Goldencrest if I don’t actually take advantage of their resources. The school has allowed me to bring Amelia into all of the rifts just in case,” she explained.

“I am actually a little surprised that your family hasn’t sent over an entire team of guards to protect you,” he said with a joking laugh.

“Oh, they tried,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “They insisted that my safety was in question and wanted some of my family’s Tier 5s to come to the school.”

“They tried?”

“Yeah, the school fullheartedly denied them. They weren’t going to allow a bunch of powerful retainers of the Royal Family to waltz in and have access to campus,” she said with a grateful smile.

“I bet that didn’t make them happy. I would have thought they would have taken you back to the capital in that case,” he commented.

“Yeah, they weren’t thrilled, and they did threaten to take me back. But I managed to convince them not to when I mentioned that bringing me back to the Capital would probably put me in more danger, considering that the whole reason I left was because people were constantly trying to kill me. This is actually the fewest number of assassination attempts I have experienced in a single year,” she said with this weirdly prideful tone.

He gave her a mirthful smirk, but before he could reply, he suddenly remembered something important.

“My match!” He exclaimed.

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Reinera whipped her head to look at him. “What? Did you miss it?” She asked frantically.

He glanced over at the large clock on the side of the building next to them and facepalmed his forehead once he realized that he had indeed missed his match. It was supposed to have begun ten minutes ago.

“I am so stupid, I can’t believe I completely forgot about it,” he said while slapping himself on the side of the head. This was his own fault for his general uncaring attitude toward the tournament. He had not thought of it as important and forgot it the moment something more interesting popped up.

She went over to him and patted him soothingly on the back. “Look on the bright side, it’s only the prelims and not the second stage, which just means you will only have a loss on your record.”

He sighed loudly. “I am more worried about the scolding I am going to be getting because I forgot,” he admitted.

She winced at that. “Yeah, but at least you had a good excuse,” she said optimistically.

He nodded to himself. She had a good point, it wasn’t like he had been sleeping or something. They had been investigating something important.

Plus, it wasn’t like he had been looking forward to his match either. The last three opponents he had faced had not been much of a challenge. They weren’t that powerful and did not have many interesting skills.

The real fights would only begin after the prelims were over. Just now, he had a single loss on his record, which wasn’t the worst thing in the world, all things considered.