Once he determined it waspletely dead, he dropped to the ground. He immediately started the process of healing his arm, red and orange mes enveloping it. Funnily enough, for how much effort that fight took, he was still almost fully loaded on mana. The only one that was kind of depleted was his life mana. But he still had no problems healing himself back to full health.


    While he recovered, he took a look at his notifications.


    [Savage Dance lvl 10 -> lvl 11]


    [Arcane Construct lvl 3 -> lvl 5]


    [Pure Compression lvl 3 -> lvl 4]


    [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 3 -> lvl 5]


    [Kic Reinforcement lvl 14 -> lvl 15]


    Julius internally cheered, he had finally reached level 15 in [Kic Reinforcement]. It took putting himself in a lot of danger, but it paid off. He had aplished his goal of evolving all his skills.


    [Kic Reinforcement] has advanced to level 15. Would you like to evolve the skill?


    Skill [Kic Reinforcement] is evolving… possible advancements: [Advanced Kic Reinforcement], [Force Tempering], [Kic Augmentation], and [Kic Surge]


    He had four options avable to him. However, three of them were simr sounding skills. [Advanced Kic Reinforcement], [Force Tempering], and [Kic Augmentation] all sounded like they were skills meant to increase the physical abilities of his body. Much like how [Kic Reinforcement] had changed it, just at a higher level.


    [Advanced Kic Reinforcement] was the usual direct upgrade, and a solid option if he didn''t want to choose another option. [Force Tempering] was pretty intriguing. It was the only one that wasn''tbeled as "Kic", which might mean it would temper his body against all forces, not just kic. If so, then Julius really liked that option. It might not be an offensive skill, but it could potentially be a reliable defensive upgrade.


    [Kic Augmentation] reminded Julius of an artificial enhancement. If [Kic Reinforcement] strengthened what was already there, then [Kic Augmentation] might elevate his body to a whole other level. It might take him beyond mortal capabilities, and into the realm of superhuman.


    Then there was [Kic Surge] to consider. It had to be an option because of how he had used kic energy to kill thest troll leader. If so, that was a potent weapon to have in his arsenal. His main worry was that the skill wouldn''t provide a way for him to handle the stress of the skill.


    If he didn''t have [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] he would have lost not just his hand, but his entire arm. Not to mention how much damage it had done to every part of his body. It was not a skill he could use until either he got a much more robust physique or he got a Tier 2 body. However, one of them would require him to choose a skill other than [Kic Surge]. While the other would require him to wait until he tiered up. Even at his current fast pace, he couldn''t see himself being able to advance before the rift copsed or whatever was happening to it.


    He would also be able to use the technique without the skill, albeit without such ease that the skill would provide. A part of him wanted to choose it anyway, just so that he would have it when he reached Tier 2. But the more rational part of him thought better of it.


    He needed all the power he could get at this very moment. He could n for the long-term all he wanted, but it meant nothing if he died tomorrow.


    Therefore, he disregarded [Kic Surge], though it pained him to do so. Then he also eliminated [Advanced Kic Reinforcement], because while [Kic Reinforcement] was nice for when he first got it. It slowly showed its limitations as Julius got stronger. [Kic Reinforcement] made his skin, bones, and entire body tougher, but it wasn''t even enough to endure even a single attack from the trolls. A halfhearted strike would shatter his body like a porcin doll.


    So it came down to deciding between [Force Tempering] and [Kic Augmentation]. He really liked the sound of [Force Tempering] because he felt like it would provide him thergest defensive benefit. But if he was being honest with himself, [Kic Augmentation] fit him better. Kic was one of his main affinities and his physical abilities could use a little "augmentation". Decision made, Julius selected [Kic Augmentation].


    Congrattions, skill [Kic Augmentation] (Rare) acquired.


    Julius began to feel a tingling from his head to his toes.


    Ohe on, not this again, Julius prayed that the sensations would stop there. He forgot how painful receiving [Kic Reinforcement] was. The sensations started to dial-up and reached a point where they went from ufortable to outright painful. Thankfully, he was able to activate [Savage Dance] at will now and could offset a lot of the pain. But he still was not looking forward to what going to happen.


    Julius isted himself as far away from the pain as was able to but still felt like fire ants were gnawing on his bones. He couldn''t imagine what it would feel like without numbing most of the pain.


    Then the greedy perfectionist side of him reared its ugly head and he remembered how he implemented his healing skill during the processst time. He vividly recalled how the pain had increased due to the addition, but he also didn''t forget how much more impressive the results ended up being.


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    Gritting his teeth, he slowly fed life mana into the skill, and boy did it hurt. It was almost as bad as the first time. However, he attempted to shut the pain out concentrating on anything but the agony he was experiencing.


    He could sense the effects of his stubbornness was working. His bones were taking in all the life and fire mana his healing skill provided, sucking them into his bones and flesh. Causing them to radiate with a luster that spoke of its potential power.


    After the skill had run its course and he could feel it start winding down, Julius released his hold of [Savage Dance]. His body had a soreness that even [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] could notpletely heal. But it felt immensely different.


    He could immediately tell that his entire body had be much heavier and tougher than before. He also could feel that his body held a wellspring of power that was waiting to be unleashed. Every single molecule in his body was like it was supercharged with kic energy.


    It was simr to a stable version of [Kic Surge]. It didn''t have the explosiveness, but it was passively active and would continue to work without his attention and applied to every movement he made. He was very happy with the result. He didn''t know how he wouldpare to a Tier 2 with an Affinity Body, but he couldn''t imagine they were much stronger than his current self.


    After his skill evolution, he took a breather to rx and wait for the worst of the soreness to dissipate. However, he did want to check his status in the meantime.


    Name: Julius Von Hyperius


    Tier: 1


    Skills:


    [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 5] (Rare+)


    [Spatial Perception lvl 19] (Rare)


    [Savage Dance lvl 11] (Rare)


    [Arcane Construct lvl 5] (Rare)


    [Pure Compression lvl 4] (Rare)


    [Kic Augmentation lvl 1] (Rare)


    It was a very satisfying sight. He had managed to upgrade every one of his skills to (Rare), and in the case of [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] to (Rare+), which he was still very curious about. It was something he was going to look into in the future.


    Speaking of that, he hadn''t quite decided what he was going to do after the rift. His n for years had always been to go to an academy to learn more about the world and advancing tiers in general. Lukas and Edwin had been really tight-lipped when it came to the details and requirements for advancement. They had only told him what he would need to do to reach Tier 2 and get his evolved body. However, they told him to wait until he reached the academy before he started to worry about the specifics of other tiers.


    Therefore, Julius didn''t know much about how the power structure worked in this world. He understood that tiers started at untiered and continued to go up until at least tier 6, but was that the limit? Or were there tiers beyond that? Furthermore, he didn''t understand how to reach Tier 3. He was getting close enough to Tier 2, that he would need to start worrying about that pretty soon.


    He still thought it was a good idea to go to an academy. Goldencrest was still his first choice, but even schools like Brightwood or Reyton would be a good option. But considering his situation, he had no idea where the nearest one would be.


    If he was in the Endless Forest like he suspected, then it would be hard to get to any. The Endless Forest was a notorious piece ofnd within the southern region of the continent. It was technically under the Luminous Empire''s rule, but no one really thought the Empire had any control of that territory. The Endless Forest took up a massive chunk of the Empire''snd, and only a small portion of it was used to collect resources. The forest was split into severalyers. As you made your way deeper into the forest, so would the threat level. The outermostyers started around an E or D-rank threat, go past that and it would be C or B-rank. Then once you enter the core of the forest, which was by far thergest part, A and S-rank threats were everywhere. Dragons and other exceedingly dangerous mythological beasts made their home in the core of the forest.


    There haven''t been many excursions past the first fewyers, it was too difficult to find enough people who were powerful enough to travel so deep into a dangerous territory for an extended period. So information was rtively sparse.


    The Luminous Empire hade to realize that it was not worth the risks to venture any deeper and anger its residents. They were satisfied with gathering materials from the outeryers and dealing with the asional rift overflows every once in a while. Realizing that the rift overflows that urred deep within the forest were taken care of by the very powerful denizens living there.


    Luckily for Julius, he would guess he was in one of the outeryers. He hadn''t seen any monsters other than the wolf, but many outer areas were quite barren of monsters from the years of gathering.


    Still, the rift was bothering him. There shouldn''t have been a Tier 3 rift where he was stranded. That on top of the fact that it had sucked him in was ringing the rm bells in his head.


    However, the fact remained that he had to clear the rift, and soon by the looks of it. The cracks in the sky were spreading even wider and he would estimate it would cover the sky within a week. He could figure out his education ns at ater date. His next goal was to decide how he wanted to kill the other hundreds of trolls.


    The first idea he had was to use darkness to his advantage. He knew that the camp went to sleep at night and [Spatial Perception] would give him arge advantage. But he wouldn''t be able to use [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] unless he doesn''t use any fire mana with it, which lowered its efficiency.


    But he thought he would ce himself high on one of the mountain tops and rain down explosives. It''s not very sporting, but neither is fighting hundreds of trolls by his lonesome. However, he was worried that his barrage wouldn''t kill the trolls. He had only been able to kill them so far because of his urate attacks. Relying on the subsequent explosions from the st didn''t sound like a good n. A grievous wound to a human was practically a papercut to a troll since it could heal within a few seconds. He would just waste his mana and give up the game.


    His other n, which was the one he was leaning toward, was to just continue hunting them down. He could try to do it at night when they were unprepared, by sneaking into their camp and killing as many as he could before the other woke up. Then he would flee under the cover of darkness before they get organized.


    It was the best n he coulde up with, and he knew anything moreplicated would just be counter-productive. Odds were that once the fighting started, he would need to improvise either way.


    Sneak in, do as much damage as he can, and run away. He liked simple ns and this one didn''t get any simpler.