Julius was pretty confident that he had actually died this time around. He could feel death snatch him and drag him into its embrace. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Yet, just as he was heading into the dark abyss, he felt his soul gently warm him throughout and a faint light trickled out of it. That light slowly expanded and soon it was a roaring tidal wave of fire and life.

But as quickly as it happened, the sensation vanished. He suddenly found himself floating in the sky.

He spun around, confused. Wondering where the hell he was. This wasn’t his soul space nor the void. This was something else.

On one side of the sky, it was bright blue with soft clouds draped across the horizon. But on the other side, there was a setting sun. But there was no sunset. Instead, this sun was placed on the edge of a black night sky. Stars were sparkling around the sun, yet there was no moon in sight.

It was a surreal and unusual sight. One that only increased his confusion.

“What happened?” he muttered to himself.

“I should be asking that,” a deep and powerful voice called out suddenly.

Julius twisted around. That voice had sounded vaguely familiar. And he was right, standing in front of him was someone he had wondered if he’d ever see again.

“Hello, Jasper,” he greeted the man. The same man who’d once pulled him inside that troll rift all that time ago.

He looked the same as Julius remembered, a shadowy figure that obscured his features. However, unlike the last time, Julius had gotten stronger and that meant his senses had undergone many changes. The pressure he was feeling from Jasper was unlike anything he’d sensed before.

It was both gentle and absolutely oppressive. It was all-encompassing, as if the entire world was shifting to accommodate the mysterious man. No amount of aura control was able to shroud the man's existence.

He hadn’t been able to sense this all that time ago, but that was because he’d been blind to the ways of the world.

“Hello, Julius. You’d gotten quite a lot stronger since the last time we met. Tier 1 to Tier 4 in a year is no small feat,” Jasper noted.

He laughed briefly, inwardly criticizing himself. “You think so? Because I don’t know if you noticed, but I think I just got myself killed again.”

"That’s on you. Who just runs into a horde of monsters like that?” Jasper almost sounded offended. “You’re lucky that you’ve upgraded that body of yours. Otherwise, that would have been the end of the line for you.”

Julius nodded solemnly. That had been a bit dumb on his part, there was no arguing that. But knowing he had that to fall back on had made him reckless.

“So where am I? Are we in between dimensions again?”

“Something similar. I guess you would be more familiar with the term purgatory or a place in between death and life.”

“Were you keeping an eye on me? How’d you know I was here?”

“I was actually alerted that someone was messing with the Words of the World. And lo and behold, it was related to you,” Jasper explained with a shrug as if the idea of someone messing with the system governing this world was no big deal.

But that also informed Julius of something he’d only speculated. Someone had been messing with him and forced him into that gorge with that Trial Key.

“So it wasn’t you? I suspected that someone was messing with me, and I didn’t know if it was you again,” Julius admitted.

Jasper laughed and looked at him. “No, believe me, there are many easier ways for me to mess with you if I wanted to. I was the one who saved you.”

“Saved me? But I thought that you said that my body would have helped me survive?” Julius asked with confusion.

“Oh, you would have come back to life. But at your level of cultivation, the cost would have been exorbitant. You would have been nothing but a shell of your former self. Your memories would have been shattered, and your sense of self would have been warped beyond repair. You would have turned into a mindless beast, directed by pure instincts. Which wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing either since your ruinous aura is a nasty little bugger. That isn’t even mentioning the karmic repercussions you would have experienced. I shouldn’t have to say this, but don’t die again. The price of this ability is far beyond what your soul and mind are able to handle. But then again, I suspect that was their idea.”

“Their idea?” Julius asked, feeling very worried all of a sudden.

“Yes, whoever messed with your trial and the Words of the World. They might have understood your ability and wished for this to happen. I don’t know what they planned to do with it afterward, but I doubt it was anything good for you. Who knows, maybe they wanted a flesh puppet to take over. People with phoenix constitutions are a rare breed. But then again, they might have been bored and wanted to sow some chaos.”

Julius froze and his thoughts started to roam as he started to think about the repercussions of what almost happened. Jasper let him be too, he stood there as Julius gathered himself.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“So what happens now? Am I still going to turn into a mindless beast?”

Jasper shook his head. “You’re lucky that I noticed in time. And because of their actions, I have been given the liberty of intervening more than I am ordinarily allowed. I took the cost of your inability onto myself. Well, some of it. You are definitely going to feel some of the after effects later, but that’s better than the alternative, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s true.” Julius chuckled and smiled at Jasper. “Thank you."

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just doing my job. And truth be told, I didn’t think you’d still be alive at this point. I thought you would have died inside a rift by now. You reincarnators like to throw yourselves into the jaws of death. So good on you.”

Julius wasn’t even surprised by Jasper’s casual admittance that he knew about his reincarnation. He suspected the man already knew way back then.

“What do I do now?”

“You should probably evolve that phoenix skill of yours. I might have helped a lot with lessening the cost of your body’s ability, but the price is still pretty extreme. Luckily, you were on the brink of evolving your healing skill. I calculated that you should be somewhat fine as long as you successfully evolve the skill. Your soul might experience a slight period of stagnancy, and your skill progression will reflect that, but it shouldn’t be long-term, so don’t worry.”

“What?” Julius asked concerningly.

Jasper ignored him. “You don’t have a lot of time, so if you want to evolve your skill, you'd better do it now.”

“Wait, what about Drasil? Is he okay?”

“Your familiar?”

He nodded.”

“Yeah, he’s fine. In fact, he’s the reason why you are even coherent at the moment, without him you would have been in a much more precarious situation, even with my help.”

He let out a sigh of relief. He’d been worried that something had happened to Drasil; he hadn’t been able to sense him within his soul. “Where is he then?”

“Well, since he’s a spirit, they aren’t allowed to enter this space. Instead, they are sent back to the spirit realm. I suspect he’s waiting for you to come back.”

“Okay, but what about the requirements? I didn’t complete them?”

Jasper laughed loudly, as if what he’d asked was hilarious. The entire sky shook with each laugh. He just stood there, wondering what was so funny.

“Am I missing something?”

“Check your notifications.”

Julius frowned but did as he was told.

Congratulations, you have completed your skill evolution trial. Evolution of [Phoenix Renewal] will now commence…

“Wait, how did that happen? I don’t remember—”

Julius was cut off because he suddenly bent over, his body was on fire, and pain was rushing through his veins. An extraordinary amount of life and fire mana was tearing through his flesh. He gasped as he desperately tried to use his focus skill to handle the pain, but that didn’t work.

The pain kept on increasing.

“Yeah, I didn’t feel like it was appropriate to bring up, but it is probably going to be quite painful. Most self-healing skills are excruciating. But don’t worry, as long as you can handle it, the skill will evolve. Whatever you do, don’t give up. If you interrupt it or mess with the process, you will get a lesser version of the skill. And that would be a bloody shame,” Jasper said consolingly, appearing right at his side.

Julius wanted to respond, but only a gurgled moan came out.

To be honest, the shadowy figure made him feel more weird than comforting.

His mind felt like it was being set on fire and someone was stabbing it with an ice pick over and over. It was by far one of the most agonizing experiences of his life and he could do nothing but let it run its course.

Jasper patted him on the back, completely unfazed as he thrashed around in agony. “When you return, just be a little more cautious about going inside random sketchy dimensions, okay? I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell you that, but based on your history, I think it's prudent.”

Jasper might have said even more things, but Julius wasn’t able to hear them. The only thing he could hear was the sounds of his own screaming as his body was burned down and reconstructed before his very eyes.

Each fiber of his being was scorched into oblivion and woven back together in a continuous cycle of destruction and rebirth. The skill was breaking down the entire structure of his body, in a way that his body evolution during his Tier 4 advancement hadn’t done. Jasper’s words resonated in his mind, and he realized what he meant about messing up the process and interrupting it.

However, he didn’t have plans of doing that, so he let the skill do its thing and held off for dear life.

He didn’t know how long it went, but it was long enough that he was starting to actually think he wasn’t going to be able to hold on. But just as his willpower was about to give out, he felt the pressure ease. He was able to breathe again, and when he opened his eyes, he was greeted by darkness.

But it wasn’t the sort of darkness he experienced in a place like the void, nope. It was the type of darkness when something was covering your eyes. He shook his head and tried to wipe away whatever was blocking his vision.

He didn’t know where he was, but it was very warm and comforting. As if someone draped a cozy blanket on top of him. Honestly, the feeling felt pretty familiar, and after a few moments, he realized that he was covered in ash.

He chuckled, which only had the ash go deeper into his nose and mouth. He coughed and quickly dug his way out of the ash. There was a lot, at least a few feet of ash layered over him.

When he finally breached the surface, he was greeted by an object landing on his face. He recognized Seraphyne’s presence instantly and gave her a hug.

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, you should be, you idiot,” she mumbled.

He laughed and noticed that she wasn’t alone. Elder Huan was right there beside her, looking at Julius with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

“Oh, hey!” Julius said with a meek wave.

“You’re alive,” Elder Huan finally stated softly.

He scratched his head. “Uhh, yeah.”

“How?”

Julius opened his mouth, but no words came out. He looked for the words to explain what happened to him, but failed. Instead, he shrugged and smirked. “A skill.”

Elder Huan seemed amused for some reason and laughed warmly. “A skill, huh?”

Julius joined him in laughter. “Yeah, a skill.”

And what a skill it was. When he was done laughing, he finally looked at the flashing notification.

Congratulations, you have evolved [Phoenix Renewal] -> [Phoenix Incarnate] (Legendary+)

Julius smiled and shook his head in mirth. Once again, almost dying seemed to have only helped him get stronger.

He still had a grin on his face when he turned back to Elder Huan, but that grin slowly turned into one of confusion.

“Wait, why are you glowing?”

This time, it was Elder Huan who smirked at him. “A skill.”