Path to Transcendence

He was able to tell right away that these goblins weren't even Tier 3 yet. It seemed that all of them were around Tier 2 and that the main threat they posed was their numbers.

Not even because he was afraid they would overwhelm him, but because he believed that taking care of all of them without expending a lot of energy would be kind of difficult.

He didn't feel threatened but he couldn't help but feel wary about the first wave having so many enemies.

He had been half expecting a dozen or so monsters. Nothing like the horde of goblins running up the hill at him. Experience tales at empire

Shaking his head slightly, he prepared himself anyway.

He took a construct hovering over his shoulder and broke it down. Turned it into a couple dozen smaller needles of mana and took aim.

Once he was confident he sent them screeching through the air, razing over half the horde in a single attack. Not every needle hit a goblin in the head but the way he layered them, he was guaranteed that the needles to continue to the next target after they pierced the first goblin.

Only around a third of the needles were still usable after the first attack, but he still made sure to use them to finish off the rest of the goblins off, only targeting the goblins who were still running at him.

There were many who were injured on the ground, but the ones who could still fight posed a greater threat.

However, once that was done, he went over to the injured goblins. Some had missing limbs or holes in their chests and he quickly dispatched them.

What he did notice, was that these monsters didn't act like the goblins he had fought in the past nor the monsters he had fought in any rift.

While monsters normally didn't have the most impressive intelligence, they still had animalistic tendencies. These goblins were different though.

They had this weirdly feral attitude but also this dead stare in their eyes. It was quite unnerving to see up close.

He shook his head, pushing away those thoughts for the time being. He had to get ready for the next wave in ten minutes.

This was just the first wave, the easiest if the notification were to be trusted. He just hoped that the difficulty increments were not that drastic.

He was also very happy that he didn't use much if any mana. He felt that he did a great job being efficient while also not taking too much time.

That being said, his opponents were only Tier 2, so it was hard to say it was a balanced fight. He also didn't know if he would be facing more Tier 2s in the next wave.

Speaking of the next wave, Julius watched as the bodies of the goblins slowly evaporated into light and disappeared completely.

It was a very interesting thing to see, it must have been some sort of mechanism of the rift.

Congratulations, First Wave completed… Please wait ten minutes for the Second Wave.

As the bodies disappeared, he was left on top of the hill, just waiting there for the next wave to start. He knew that he was going to have to wait for ten minutes so while he waited, he decided to see if he could find himself an advantage.

He walked down the hill and took one of his constructs in hand. He then remolded it into a large shovel before attempting to jam it into the ground.

However, to his shock, he found himself completely unable to do so. It was like the grassy dirt was made of steel. But he also knew for a fact that it wasn't. Just moments prior, he saw small holes created from his attack against the goblins.

Is the rift preventing me from using the terrain to my advantage? That doesn't seem fair, what if I had some sort of trap-making skill set that required me to dig the ground up?

Regardless, now that he knew, he just stood back and waited for the ten minutes to be up.

***

Ten minutes were gone before he knew it. It was easy to see that was because another wave of tiny green monsters spawned before his very eyes.

They were still goblins, but this time it seemed the rift believed that fifty of them wasn't enough of a challenge and sent a hundred of them this time around.

It really didn't make much of a difference. The only thing that really changed was that he needed to use slightly more mana than last time. But that was all, he easily took care of the hundred goblins without any trouble.

Congratulations, Second Wave completed… Please wait ten minutes for the Third Wave.

***

The third wave thankfully didn't double the amount of goblins and only added another fifty.

And the fourth wave did the same thing. A total of two hundred goblins all stormed up the hill at him with dead eyes and feral screams.

He couldn't help but wonder how others would be fair if they were in his position. But he also didn't know if they would be undergoing the same types of waves he was experiencing. It was possible that by choosing the hard difficulty each wave specifically presented monsters based on each Challenger's abilities instead of something more standard.

Perhaps, Reinera was facing off against more powerful monsters but in smaller numbers. However, he didn't doubt that she would choose hard, she liked to pretend she wasn't but she was very competitive.

He was almost hoping for something like that instead. Because at this point there were so many goblins that were sprinting at him that he wasn't able to take them out before they got closer than he wanted them to.

With that being said, they were still only Tier 2 and weren't much of a problem at all.

In fact, it was actually more unnerving than anything else. He didn't care if the goblins were weak, even for their tier, they just reminded him of an army of rats trying to take down an animal.

And in this case, he was the animal. With a shiver, he took out a small snack as he waited for his expended mana to recover.

Congratulations, Fourth Wave completed… Please wait ten minutes for the Fifth Wave.

***

The fifth wave was finally where he started to see a difference. On one hand, he was happy not to see a large horde of hundreds of tiny goblins running at him. This wave seemed to send only ten at him.

On the other hand, seeing only ten opponents gave him a larger feeling of danger. It was because this time each of the opponents was Tier 3 and much stronger than the goblins before were.

To be honest, though, the new monsters weren't that different than goblins. They were much larger and more muscular, even having a large set of tusks protruding from their mouths, but they still had green skin and yellow eyes.

He had a feeling that these new monsters were the Tier 3 versions of goblins, often called hobgoblins.

They no longer carried wooden clubs and beat-up weapons either. They were all armed with shiny steel weapons. Some carried swords, others had spears, and some had bows. But the most annoying thing was that their warriors all had shields.

That would severely limit how much damage he could do with his constructs even if he didn't sense any Concepts from this group of Hobgoblins. Just having to tear through another layer of defense would slow down his effectiveness.

Furthermore, dealing with the archers would be frustrating for him to deal with. It was easy to focus on a bunch of wildly swinging monsters, but having to keep an eye on the sky for any straying arrows would be more difficult.

Luckily he was on top of a hill, so that should make it harder for the archers to hit him. Or that was what he was hoping for at least. He didn't know if it would actually go like that.

He observed as the hobgoblins all rushed toward him up the hill. The three archers were already knocking arrows on their strings and he sighed as he finally activated his body enhancement skills for the first time during this rift.

He then split one of his hovering blocks of mana into ten smaller spikes and sent them hurtling toward the archers toward the back.

To his surprise though, he sensed the archers activate a skill that allowed them to partially dodge the spikes in a quick movement. But they weren't fast enough to avoid them altogether. He only managed to tag two of the three, but they were hurt pretty badly.

The third one had gotten out of the way in time and released its arrow as it did.

Julius was forced to step to the side of the arrow and quickly sent out another piercing spike at the archer.

However, unlike the first attack, some of the hobgoblins retreated back to guard their archers and one of them had blocked it with its shield.

The spike was still powerful though and knocked the hobgoblin completely off its feet and put a large dent into its shield.

That just left four who were approaching him and another three who were guarding the archers.

The two he injured were hurt pretty bad but they somehow managed to get up and draw their bows again with their comrade's support.

He sighed and decided to take the four rushing toward him while their friends were scrambling to protect the archers.

He pumped mana through his body skills and used a single strong [Flash Step] to avoid the arrows coming toward him, but also used it to decrease the distance.

He took the first hobgoblin out with a brutal strike to its throat, almost decapitating it with a single strike. Its friends quickly followed. He made sure to be as efficient and waste no movement.

They were much too slow to keep up with him. His physical abilities have increased quite a lot since he advanced to Tier 3 and got his new body skill.

Simple Tier 3s without Concepts weren't a match for him.

[Aura Burn] was also nice to add. It didn't take that much mana to use and mainly relied on his aura as a resource, so he still wove it into his attacks.

He wasn't worried about running out of mana during this wave, but he wanted to ensure that he was keeping it as clean as possible.

He only needed several surges of kinetic energy to take care of the four hobgoblins. His kinetic energy body skill still did the majority of work when it came to enhancing his physical abilities, but the new [Thermal Empowerment] skill did a nice job enforcing his body in other ways. It actually did a better job of protecting him than [Kinetic Augmentation], which was more of an offensive enhancement skill.

He was very happy with the skill so far. It had been what he had been looking for in a skill he wanted to merge with [Kinetic Augmentation].

After he handled the four, he instantly pivoted toward the two injured archers. He sent two powerful spikes of mana toward the archers and before the hobgoblin warriors could protect them with their shields, Julius froze them with his kinetic energy for just a moment.

The technique used more kinetic energy than just simply taking care of them with his fists, but he had used it so briefly, that the waste was a non-factor.

And it worked out too. The warriors who had decided to protect their long-range fighters froze just before they covered the archers and could only watch as Julius tore through them with ease.

Before they could get back to their feet and realize what was going on, he was already on top of them.

He ripped away the shield of one of them and proceeded to use it to bash the warrior to the side. He then turned back to the one he took it from and swung it down in an overhead swing, smashing through its extended sword as it desperately tried to block him.

He crushed its head into a pulp and before the third warrior had rotated over to help, he threw the shield with a small burst of kinetic energy attached to it.

When the warrior lifted its own shield to block, it was surprised that it was knocked off of its feet.

Julius sidestepped two arrows that had been shooting toward his back and lept to the warrior he had initially bashed to the side. The hobgoblin had just managed to get back to its feet with a stagger but was greeted with Julius's fist crushing its jaw with a perfect hook, completely removing it from its face, and leaving an ashy trail in his wake.

Then he sent two small needles of mana at the injured archers who were in the middle of firing off more attacks. This time, they weren't able to activate their movement skill in time and took the arrows to the chests, killing them instantly.

He glanced over at the last two. It was the uninjured archer and the warrior who had taken his flying shield.

He checked his mana and found it relatively full. He would be able to recover it within ten minutes easily.

Thus, he splurged a little bit. He wrapped the two of them with kinetic energy and walked up to them once they were completely immobilized.

Since neither of them had Concepts or powerful wills, he was able to freeze them with little trouble.

He quickly sent two bursts of mana and removed their heads when he got within several feet.

And then he watched as the bodies all around him, weapons included, turned into particles of light.

Congratulations, Fifth Wave completed… Please wait ten minutes for the Sixth Wave.