“Hey, I’ve seen you before.” the guy said to Julius.

Julius finally turned to look at who these individuals were. The guy who was speaking was actually familiar to him as well. He was the tall guy from his Physical Training class and Professor Hashen’s Swordsmanship elective. He had never talked to the guy before or even heard him speak, so it was quite a surprise that he had approached Julius like this. He had dark hair and was also very handsome, with angular features and a chiseled jawline.

The other three looked like they were this guy's friends. The other guy was also tall, but he had more plain features, nothing ugly but nothing outstanding either. Julius was able to see the curiosity on the guy’s face though. It seemed like he too was surprised that his friend had decided to stop and talk to Julius.

The two other girls both had brown hair and were very pretty in their own right. They didn’t seem to care as much as the other guy did about Tall Guy’s decision to stop and were quietly whispering amongst themselves about something about something.

He finally looked back at Tall Guy’s eyes and said, “Yeah, I have seen you around as well. So what do you need?”

If his cold reply offended the guy, then he didn’t show it. “Oh, nothing. I just wanted to say hi. I have seen you around and I never got the chance to talk to you.”

Julius wasn’t going to lie, the guy had a very kind smile and came off as a nice guy. Which made him feel bad for being so cold off the bat, so he decided to tone it back and be a little more nice himself. “Oh, well it’s nice to meet you. I’m Julius by the way.” He extended his hand to the tall first-year who took it in stride and gave a nice firm shake.

“Nice to meet you Julius, my name’s Joshua. I admit I am a little surprised to see another first-year who knows about this spot,” he waved his arm around at the beach. “I only know of it because of my older cousin who is a third year. She invited us tonight along with some of her friends. Were you invited by someone else too?”

“No, some others showed me this spot a couple of weeks ago and I thought it was just very peaceful out here,” Julius truthfully told him. “I had no idea about all of that,” he waved his hand at the crowd of students off in the distance.

“Yeah, we found it a little too much for us. That was why we decided to take a walk down the beach and came across you,” Joshua said while staring off at the softly crashing waves.

One of the girls gave him a poke and said, “Hey Josh, stop bothering him. Let’s go before it gets too late.”

Joshua looked over at her and his other friends before looking back at Julius with a chuckle. “Sorry, I guess I was bothering you. Anyway, I will take my leave and let you enjoy your night. It was very nice to meet you though.” Then he walked away with him and his other friends.

Julius watched him leave and went back to watching to rippling waters of the ocean. The moonlight illuminated the crests and shone brilliantly over the dark sky.

He went back to working on smoothing out the hard rigid sections of his blanket. Slowly, but surely, he was able to create a small area that was very similar to the texture and softness of a real blanket. It took way too long, but he was confident that he would get better with practice.

The hardest part of doing it was keeping the other parts of the construct soft as he made changes to other sections. If he didn’t maintain focus on what he had made soft, then sometimes he would catch the construct reverting back to its rigid structure.

While he was doing that, he was also attempting another thing. He wanted to figure out how to use [Empowerment of Will] to boost [Savage Dance]. It was for a specific goal he had in mind. The mindset he was able to achieve was on a completely different level than when he used [Savage Dance] normally.

Most of the time [Savage Dance] was used as a concentration skill, Julius sometimes forgot that the skill wasn’t originally meant to be used just for that purpose.

It was a combination of two skills, [Brutal Strike] and [Combat Trance]. However, it felt like he had been using the skill mainly as an evolved [Combat Trance] skill instead. The part of the skill that gave him hints of where he needed to strike had become instinctually engraved into Julius’s fighting style and didn’t have as much of a purpose anymore. At least that was what he felt, who knew, perhaps the reason it was so ingrained in him that he didn’t notice it.

However, did that mean that he wasn’t using [Savage Dance] to its full potential? It certainly didn’t feel any weaker than his other rare skills. What if the skill had slowly transitioned from its original parameters and had taken a new direction? He had always thought that skills were more flexible than what others made them out to be, but how far did that extend?

That was also another reason why he was experimenting with [Empowerment of Will] and [Savage Dance]. He was looking for a way to get into a deep meditative state where understanding Concepts was more natural.

The only problem was that using the two skills in conjunction only worked for a short period before he felt the drawbacks. It was better than before when he had immediately lost consciousness. At least now, he was even able to use both in conjunction for a short period. But he wanted more, or at least something a little more gentle and longer lasting.

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[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] was such a blessing as he tried out his ideas. Even active for only a couple of seconds, his brain and soul felt stretched, and he had to use the skill to heal the damage. At the moment, he was trying to use less aura to enhance [Savage Dance]. He was literally trying to use only a trickle of aura and it was much harder than it seemed.

It was ironic in a way. He had been frustrated at his inability to use large amounts of mana or aura in a single instant, but now he was getting frustrated at his inability to use fewer amounts at will. It was shockingly hard to keep a low-intensity amount of aura flowing consistently through a skill.

Right now, when [Empowerment of Will] connected with [Savage Dance] there was a pre-determined valve where aura would flow through. But Julius didn’t want that. That valve used too much aura for his current needs. That mental state he had reached when he created that disc of mana was overkill for what he wanted.

He just wanted a slight boost to [Savage Dance] that could last for several minutes or even longer. Gabriel had told him how close he was to getting a Sharpness Concept, but he also mentioned how that last step was always the hardest part.

Julius thought that if he could make this work, then getting a Sharpness Concept and even future Concepts would be far easier. Then again, this was all a guess, so who knew if it would work? For all he knew, this plan would just be a waste of time and give him massive headaches.

It was actually very similar to what he had been doing with the blanket. He had a hard time with the softer applications of mana and aura. It was clearly something that he needed to work on. On the bright side, using [Empowerment of Will] like this was actually very good training for his aura. The strict control requirements would benefit him immensely in the future.

He was able to activate [Savage Dance] with [Empowerment of Will] enhancing the skill slightly a couple of times. It was never longer than a few seconds, but he definitely knew it was possible. Those few seconds were exactly what he wanted. During those fleeting moments, his mind expanded gently and everything seemed to just slow down. It was oddly peaceful and relaxing. But then the skill would cut off and he would find himself back to normal.

He spent several more hours slowly getting better and better. It never lasted more than a few seconds but his consistency in getting to that point was improving. The other students had long ago left and it was just him on the beach, enjoying the crisp ocean breeze.

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Joshua POV

He and his friends were walking back to campus. It was Friday, so there wasn’t class the next day, but he wanted to get up early and practice some skills he had some ideas about. However, the entire time his mind was distracted by his interaction with Julius. Joshua had seen Julius in a couple of his classes. He didn’t seem all that outstanding at first glance. He would estimate he was right around the middle of the pack when it came to who was the strongest.

There were a few people who he had noticed among his classmates who were obviously on a different level than the others. The first and most obvious one was Helen Cromweld. She was without a doubt the strongest first-year. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she was the strongest even amongst the second-years. She was just that good.

Below her were people like Joshua. Geniuses in their right, but not quite on her level. First-years like Dexter, Jennifer, Polux, Wendall, and even Christopher were all on that list. He focused on these people more because these were the people he would be competing against in the coming years.

So why was he still thinking about Julius? It had been a coincidence coming across the fellow first year, but for some reason, Joshua’s gut was telling him that there was something off about the boy. That and the fact that Joshua hadn’t seen Julius in any of his classes for the past couple of weeks had him extremely curious about his fellow student.

He was actually going to ask him about where he had been before Ashley interrupted, but maybe that was for the best. It was most likely a personal reason, and Julius had no reason to share. But the fact that he had been gone for a while wasn’t lost upon Joshua.

Julius had been sitting all alone on the shore, looking out at the ocean. Some people like his friends Ashley and Kyla thought that he was just lonely. But Joshua didn’t get that same feeling when he talked to him. It seemed like he was genuinely enjoying himself by the ocean and not only that, but Joshua noticed Julius working on a thin sheet of mana underneath him. It looked like some sort of blanket, but he didn’t really know. What he did know was that the entire time Julius had been working on it, even while talking to him.

Joshua wasn’t a mage type or anything like that, but he had good enough mana control to understand that what Julius was doing wasn’t normal. It was rough by all standards, but the fact he was practicing it so casually out in the middle of a beach at night was a sign in itself.

Not to mention how calm Julius had acted. There was a certain mature air around him as if he was completely unfazed by their presence. The fact that he knew about the special spot was curious to Joshua as well. His cousin had firmly told him about how secretive the spot was. Only upperclassmen were supposed to know about it, so when she invited him, she made him and his friends swear to not tell anyone else.

So how had he known about it? From what he had seen of the other first-year, he didn’t have any other friends among his classmates. He was a bit of a lone wolf, but that wasn’t unusual at a place like Goldencrest. However, he mentioned that someone had shown him the spot. So who could it be?

He didn’t know why he was spending so much time thinking about it either. It wasn’t like it had any impact on Joshua or his friends if Julius knew about the spot. Still, something was bothering him about Julius. But nothing he had seen should support his suspicions.

He trusted his intuition though and mentally created a new category of students who weren’t ranked for their strength but who were interesting people. Then he added Julius to this list and made sure to remind himself to keep an eye on him.

Kyla’s bump shook him out of his thoughts. “What are you thinking about?” Her pretty blue eyes had signs of concern in them.

He shook his head, “Nothing. Just lost in thought,” he reassured her.

She didn’t quite believe him, but she dropped it. He was glad she did because he didn’t know how to explain how he was feeling. It was an odd feeling but he probably just needed a good night’s sleep to get it off his mind.

With one last glance toward the direction of the beach, he shook whatever thoughts he had left away and jogged to catch up with the others.