Path to Transcendence

It's been a week since the incident, and Julius has finally started to sort through the clutter of memories. He was the son of Gregor Von Hyperius, one of many younger brothers of Lukas Von Hyperius, the current Patriarch of House Hyperius.

House Hyperius was awarded the rank of Marquis centuries ago by the Emperor for its achievements during the Great War. It governed the Valorbury region, a large territory with many smaller houses underneath it.

He didn’t know who his mother was and had only seen his father a handful of times.

It seemed like his father and family overall did not particularly care about Julius, or rather, himself. His father had returned to the estate several times over the years, but in that time, had not visited to see Julius once.

Compared to other great houses, there were not many members of House Hyperius. The most recent monster flood took the lives of many of their elites. For a house that made their name for their martial prowess, this was a major blow to their power. Their few remaining elites were either offered better options from more powerful factions or wanted to settle down to start families of their own. This meant that House Hyperius was experiencing pressure from the remaining great houses, losing much of their influence and holdings in the past decade. It was only due to the strength of their Patriarch that they weren’t swallowed up entirely.

Reaching Tier 5 before turning forty years old, Lukas Von Hyperius was considered one of the most talented individuals of his generation. His talent was what made the former Patriarch name him his successor. However, when the former Patriarch died in the prior monster flood, Lukas was still under fifty years old but was widely known as one of the most powerful Tier 5s in the Empire.

Julius had many questions. There were so many questions that he wasn’t able to answer. He was restricted to a few areas of the estate. There was something about his circumstances that confined him to the estate. He was not allowed to visit other areas and most of the time had to eat his meals in the kitchen or his room.

To be fair, the estate was massive. The mansion alone would make Bruce Wayne’s mansion feel like a studio apartment in comparison. It could house hundreds comfortably, and the land it resided on was even more ridiculous. So, even if you lived together, you could go years without seeing each other. So he couldn’t say it was even that bad, he had more space than he did in his previous life. With that being said, it was lonely being confined in these prison-like conditions.

Reviewing his memories, he found himself pitying the former Julius. There weren’t many children his age around in the first place and the ones who were already had their groups. At seven years old, the only people he had interactions with were Gwen, Edwin, and a handful of workers, and even then, they were employees of the house, not his friends. It was also important to mention that not a single one of his blood relatives interacted with him during these seven years.

For the previous Julius, this was a curse. However, for the new Julius, this was a blessing in disguise. Because while he was confined to this part of the estate, as long as he remained inside the area, he was free to do whatever he wanted. He didn’t need to worry about pretending to be a seven-year-old child all the time. But it was odd, that in all these years his family treated him like he didn’t exist. Another unanswered question.

However, there was one thing that he was very excited about.

Magic.

It seemed that magic was possible in this world and that everyone has the ability to use it to some extent. It also had something to do with skills. The memories he gained didn’t have many details describing them, but he understood they were important. According to Gwen, he would learn more once he went through his baptism when he was twelve. Unfortunately, even after pressing her for more answers, she said the house restricted her about what she could tell him.

Magic and skills were apparently how he was able to recover so quickly. His caretaker, Gwen, was an accomplished healer and found him outside unconscious. From there, she was able to heal him and within a day he awoke in his bed feeling better than ever.

It was truly an amazing feat, and he would be feeling even more excited if it wasn’t for the fact that he had been under strict orders not to move for the last week.

Therefore, he has spent the last week sitting in bed eating, sleeping, and going over 7 years' worth of memories. It seems that he didn’t just take over Julius’ body. It was more accurate to say that their souls somehow combined. There wasn’t a separation between identities. Nonetheless, because Julius was only around 7 years old, the memories and weight of his soul were slightly lower than Julian’s. This is why he suspected his personality hadn’t changed that much from his previous life.

He also still had many questions regarding the events that brought him here, like if that light show was the reason why he arrived in this world or what else might have happened to his world during that anomaly. He couldn’t believe that something only happened to him, but he didn’t have enough information to figure out his questions. But learning and understanding magic would probably be a good start.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be an issue. Magic was not easy to learn. After a week of trying everything his brain could think of, he ended up back where he started. From visualizing to chanting, he made no progress.

Although he would be damned if he didn’t stop trying, it was magic for heaven’s sake. He and every kid always dreamed about the day they acquired magic. Now, it was an actual reality for him and he would be an idiot if he didn’t put everything into learning it. He would not allow this chance to pass him by without giving it his all. He made a pact with himself to commit to learning magic, even if it was too difficult, he wouldn’t give up.

So, he tried.

For years, he followed the same routine every day: wake up, try focusing on using the mana around him, fail, eat, and once a week go to see Edwin, a scary middle-aged gentleman for his educational lessons. He wasn’t able to access any real knowledge from the library. He was allowed to read stories or history but all techniques and guides were kept heavily restricted.

Julius was thankful he retained his memories because learning another language would have been annoying and hard to explain to everyone.

Following his lessons, he would spend the rest of his time reading whatever piece of literature he got his hands on or trying another method to use mana. In three years, he tried many techniques he thought of or found in stories. But nothing seemed to click for him. It was frustrating, to say the least. But he never gave up.

His latest attempt was to blindfold himself as he went around the estate. He got this idea because he believed that by depriving himself of his other senses, he could concentrate on his mana-sensing one. He would randomly walk around for hours, bumping into everything until he got used to it. Despite going through with it for almost a year, Julius didn’t accomplish his goal. But he was adamant he was on the right track. Being able to perceive mana was an obvious condition to use it.

Thankfully, since he was still considered a child who hadn’t undergone his baptism, most adults thought his admittingly odd actions were just that. Actions of a child. Julius didn’t think anyone really knew why, and the ones who did know did not believe him.

Because they only saw him as a young child. That’s how it worked in both worlds. Adults rarely ever take children seriously. But it certainly helped him in this case. He was now able to practice with complete freedom without many distractions. Therefore, he embraced the facade of a slightly smart yet eccentric child without second thoughts.

He kept that up for a long time, and although he didn’t get a grasp on mana, he managed to enhance his other natural senses. He swore his hearing was magnified by a significant amount. He also became much more sensitive to tastes and smells. Another interesting development was that he was developing a sort of sixth sense.

He would be able to tell where people were standing or sidestep if he was about to run into them. It also became very hard for others to sneak up on him. And interestingly became more sensitive the more often he did it.

Making a decision, he set aside his focus on finding a way to use mana for a while and decided to explore this possible ability a little more, focusing everything he had on developing it.

As a result, he started pushing the limits of this ability. How detailed can he perceive something, how far away does it extend to, is it only restricted to people or can he sense objects? Those were the questions he wanted to find out. So he spent hours every day experimenting with this new power. Using his stubbornness as a sledgehammer, hoping to break through the invisible wall he felt was just beyond reach.

So, he cranked up the intensity. Instead of depriving himself of just his sight, he stuffed pieces of clay in his ears and nostrils. Now, he could not see, hear, or smell. He wanted his entire focus to be on this supernatural ability. He also decided he needed to add some complexity to his actions.

Rather than meditating on a bench or grass, he wanted to add stress to his training, hoping that it would act as a catalyst for improvement. Therefore, he exercised around the estate and swung a wood staff he made at a gathering of trees and other targets, pretending they were enemies. It took a while for the results to show. But they slowly did. Now Julius was able to run around without ramming into trees or walls. He was also able to hit most of his intended targets without missing. It was unbelievable for someone who was previously from a world that didn’t have magic.

There were times Julius would try random things, like guessing how many petals are on a flower or how many coins are inside a purse without looking. Julius also liked a game where he would grab a random rock and throw it while trying to track its trajectory. That was a much harder endeavor. Being able to perceive a small inorganic object while it was moving was a challenge. But Julius noticed how challenging himself with games like these was improving his ability. Plus, it was just fun for him. It didn’t feel like training because he was enjoying himself so much. Therefore, he got into the habit of making up random games that would force him to use this perception ability in more creative and challenging ways. It was during this, that Julius experienced explosive growth.

Julius’s dedication had proven its worth, his perception ability had grown to the point that he didn’t need the blindfold and aids anymore. One morning he woke up and realized he was activating it instinctually.

It was as if it was just suddenly there. Like another sense. He felt extremely validated for all his efforts. However, it seemed like using it along with his other senses for very long was not possible yet. He believed the amount of information that his brain had to process was probably too much for him to handle. However, he noticed that with practice using it with his other senses, he increased the time he was able to keep it up. In the meantime, he removed his ear and nose plugs to slowly introduce more stimulus for his brain to get used to at one time.

Regretfully, now that Julius was almost twelve, his antics were becoming less of an adorable quirk and more like he was just a weirdo. He observed the other workers in his part of the estate to start giving him strange looks from time to time.

While he hadn’t quite learned how to listen in on people’s conversations using his perception ability yet, his ears were still unnaturally sharp and ended up hearing many of the workers talking about him behind his back.

Nevertheless, Julius sucked it up and ignored them, continuing with his training. It wasn’t like anything they were saying would get him to stop. Not after he had improved so much.

In the end, he didn’t care what the others said or thought because he was having so much fun. He might not have learned to manipulate mana yet, but this ability to perceive in every direction is in some ways more magical to him than throwing a fireball.