Chapter 76 (Patreon)

Julius was walking toward the cafeteria. He didn’t know what he could do. He tried to remind himself that Kyle didn’t say they were dead for sure, he had just implied that it was very likely. With that being said, it was still difficult to keep believing that they were alive though. 

He was so wrapped up in his own head that he failed to notice Liam and his buddies walking toward him. It wasn’t until Liam put an arm around his shoulder that Julius paid attention to him. Julius inwardly groaned, he wasn’t in the mood for games and didn’t have the patience for it.

He smoothly removed Liam’s arm from him and continued on his way, not even acknowledging him or his friends. 

Liam didn’t seem to take that very well and said, “Hey what’s the rush?”

Julius on any other occasion would have said something that would have appeased the guy and then made an excuse to leave, but with his current mindset, he just decided to ignore him. He didn’t trust himself to speak to the arrogant ass right now.

One of his friends didn’t take well to Julius’s behavior and the fact that he didn’t acknowledge any of them. He grabbed Julius, this time much more roughly, and said, “Hey, he is talking to you.”

Julius finally stopped walking. He felt the man’s aura was trying to intrude on his own. It didn’t have any of the practice or finesse that Liam had, it felt rugged and sloppy in comparison. At least Liam had the skills to back up his arrogance.

Julius used the same technique that he had used the last time he encountered Liam. Activating [Savage Dance] and closing his aura onto itself. However, unlike Liam who had carefully controlled his aura, this guy was like a bull in a china shop. Just causing wanton chaos and aggressively lashing out with his aura. With Julius’s mood, he was about to lash out on the asshole.

Instead of doing that Julius took a calming breath and pushed [Savage Dance] harder, keeping himself calm. Then he took a look at the door to the cafeteria, it wasn’t that far away. So with a quick burst of kinetic energy, he ripped through the guy's grip and quickly bolted to the door. He got away cleanly and luckily Liam and his friends didn’t chase after him once they saw him enter inside, but he could tell that neither of them was pleased with how the interaction went. 

They are becoming a problem for me, I just hope it doesn’t escalate more.

Julius spotted the group sitting in their usual spot and Lily quickly noticed him as well to no surprise, waving to him as he walked through the doors. Julius waved back and quickly got in line to get some food before making his way over to them.

Lily made some space next to her and ushered Julius to sit. “How are you feeling?” She asked concerningly.

“I just need some time, but I will be okay,” Julius assured her.

She just nodded. Julius didn’t know the extent of her psychic powers, but he wouldn’t be surprised to know that she could feel his pain since she was a psychic. She had always been really empathetic in the time he’d known her.

Julius told them about his run-in with Liam this morning and the one he just had a few minutes ago. He kind of forgot about the earlier interaction, so he didn’t mention it before. It had been a busy day and Julius lost track of everything that had happened. It was obvious, but everyone was outraged on his behalf. 

“Why does that prick think he can do whatever he wants?” Aubrey complained loudly.

“You know why Aubrey. The guy has been an ass since his first year and has only gotten worse as we got older,” Edgar said.

“It doesn’t help that he is at the top of the class,” Derek mentioned.

“No, it doesn’t. It only spurs him on and strokes his already inflated ego,” Aubrey commented.

Julius enjoyed seeing them insult Liam. Normally, he didn’t like when people talked badly about someone, but Julius could see why. Even after three interactions with the guy, Julius was already beginning to hate the dude. These five have had to deal with the arrogant prick for three years already, he could only begin to imagine their annoyance at him. It was oddly therapeutic to listen to as well. 

For dinner, Julius had gotten himself a mountain of steak, potatoes, and a vegetable that was quickly becoming one of his favorites. He didn’t know what it was called but it was a vegetable that resembled a piece of asparagus but had a wonderful balance of sweet and spicy. 

He also stacked many desserts on his plate. Cake, cookies, ice cream, you name it and he probably had it on his plate. He deserved it. So he sat back and enjoyed their insults toward Liam while stuffing his face. 

He also took the time to look over the many notifications he had received from his little tantrum.

[Mana Layering lvl 9 -> lvl 12]

[Empowerment of Will lvl 7 -> lvl 9]

[Arcane Construct lvl  15 -> lvl 16]

[Pure Compression lvl 14 -> lvl 15]

[Savage Dance lvl 17 -> lvl 18]

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 12 -> lvl 13]

Six skills had leveled up and some of them more than once. It left Julius stunned seeing how much progress his skills had made in a period of a few minutes. 

Wow, maybe I need to get mad more often. He joked to himself.

After he ate he said goodbye to the others. They were going to go study in the library some more because the session ended earlier than planned. After all, they had gone to the training room with Julius.

He, on the other hand, had to go to his aura class. He thought it was weird that he had to go to a late-night class, but it actually worked out well for him. He still didn’t know what professor he got, but he would find out pretty soon.

Julius made his way to the same building where he had Intro to Mana and Tier Advancement this morning. When he walked into the classroom, he was surprised to see many students already there. 

There were almost as many students here now as how many were in Professor Keller’s elective. Edgar was right when he said Professor Youma might be his professor because he saw the older man sitting right on his desk.

Honestly, Julius was glad that he was his professor. Everything he had seen from the man had Julius believe that Professor Youma was good at aura control, but he still couldn’t feel a single thing coming from the man. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought Professor Youma wasn’t even there.

There were a good number of first-years attending as well. Julius could make out at least over a dozen first-years scattered around the class. It made his presence here less weird since he was sure that the other first years didn’t have an aura skill.  

There wasn’t any long introduction. Professor Youma just explained the first task he wanted to teach the students. Unlike the other professors, he didn’t separate the class into groups. Instead, he had them all practice the same exercise. 

According to Professor Youma, it wasn’t impossible to control one’s aura without a skill. It was several multitudes more difficult than having one, but it was possible. He said that specifically to the first years because he knew that most didn’t have one. However, he did say that these exercises would build great habits and familiarity with aura control. 

He also said that many of the upperclassmen with better aura control had taken this class when they were first years too. It was hard to see immediate results but the time they put in would be evident later down the road when they got their own aura skill. It had reminded Julius a little bit about his own mana control training. 

The first thing he had them do was to practice how to suppress their aura. According to the professor, knowing how to properly suppress and hide your aura is a true sign of aura mastery. It didn’t matter what year the students were in, Professor Youma had all of them try the exercise out. 

Julius had been touching on aspects like this previously. He had just been trying to do something similar with Liam and his goons. However, Professor Youma described the technique a little more clearly.

He explained aura in terms of how heat worked. He mentioned that aura was the byproduct of one’s soul, the stronger the soul, the stronger the aura—kind of like thermal radiation.

He then went on to explain that you could insulate it. A common way most civilians used was to just build a thick layer that prevented the majority of it from leaking out. However, this was not a skilled way to do so, and had some downsides. For one, it used a lot of soul and mental energy. Secondly, any person who had an okay aura sense would be able to sense the thick layer just as easily as the aura leakage itself.

Another way was to control the aura itself. This was the method most used by more experienced users. The way Julius understood it, you would grab ahold of your aura and carefully control it so that your aura doesn’t go past your influence. Once it did, anyone with half a decent aura sense would see your aura. It also didn’t last forever, it was kind of like holding your breath. This made it more difficult but more practical if you were trying to completely hide your aura for stealth purposes or so it didn’t affect bystanders.

The technique that Professor Youma was showing the class was a hybrid method that included the second option along with an additional step that utilized the aura you were controlling. Most of the time the aura that you would sense from someone was the excess energy being emitted, and it could be used for other purposes if you controlled it. 

Keeping it contained or under control was doable for a short period, but at some point, you would need to release some of the aura or else it would overflow and break your control because of the pressure building up. 

Professor Youma’s method would mean they would control the excess aura to empower themselves passively. Warriors could use it to strengthen their bodies. Or mages could use it to enhance their constructs or minds. However, the biggest advantage was that it would be difficult for someone to detect any aura, as long as you maintained control of it. 

This would solve the leakage problem and repurpose it to strengthen yourself. Killing two birds with one stone. Julius didn’t quite fully understand it yet, but from what he could make out, he thought it was a good idea. He used a similar strategy with his kinetic energy. 

Whenever he would siphon off some of kinetic energy he would keep ahold of it and repurpose it for other applications. It took more mental focus, but after time it became a habit and Julius sometimes didn’t even notice when he was doing it.

He sat in his chair and completely focused on his aura. He wasn’t worried about someone being able to sense his aura because there were so many students using their aura, which made it hard to discern even the aura of the person next to you.

Julius began trying out what Professor Youma described. He realized that the method he was using earlier with Liam was like the smothering layer method that Professor Youma mentioned. It didn’t sound like a good method if what the professor said was true, so Julius tried to avoid that.

He closed his eyes and focused on feeling the aura that was radiating from his body. It was like heat in a way, the way it emitted from his body before disappearing into the atmosphere reminded Julius of thermal energy. 

He grabbed his entire aura and tried to not let a smidge of it leave his control, but it was more difficult than the professor had explained it. It felt like trying to take out a full load of laundry out of the dryer and carrying it across the house without dropping a single item. However, no matter how hard he tried, he always ended up losing a sock on the ground. It was mildly frustrating.

He kept on trying for the rest of the period. He didn’t manage to completely suppress his aura, but he also hadn’t been expecting to. However, he did notice that the longer he tried, the easier it was to maintain his grip. Eventually, a little leakage always fell through, but he could see that he was making progress. He learned it was actually better to find a good balance between soft and firm. He had to be gentle but also firm enough that he could still control it. 

Eventually, the class ended and the students started to filter out. However, Professor Youma had pulled Julius aside and asked him to stay behind for a moment.