The Path of Ascension

PoA: Aster's Adventures Chapter 2

Waking up on her second day at Red Feather Academy, Aster felt surprisingly good. She missed Matt and Liz something fierce, but she had things to do and new friends to do them with.

Padding out of her room, she noticed that Roody was the only one out in the common room, and nodded to his yawning self, which made her pause.

He shouldn’t be tired. She shouldn’t have even needed to sleep, but a quick search with her AI on the LocalNet gave her her answer.

The academy put a mild sedative in their rooms the first few nights. While she questioned the ethics of such an action, sleeping had settled her in quite nicely, and she could opt out of the effects at any time when they were active.

When the others came out of their rooms, she mentioned the sedative to them, but they all agreed that it had been nice to actually sleep, and it had helped settle their minds. They all agreed that if they had had nothing to do, they might have worried needlessly.

With a few hours until their first class, they went as a group to go get breakfast, which they noticed wasn’t nearly as full as last night's dinner had been. The lack of people also gave them the opportunity to try some new foods that they ordinarily wouldn’t order, thanks to the buffet style options.

Aster tried a few dishes she had never seen or tried before. She found most of them ok, but really liked the egg filled dumplings. They were the right mix of doughy, crisp, and savory, and really hit the spot. She even ended up going back for a second helping.

For the first time, a pang of homesickness hit her as Aster realized how much she really missed Matt’s cooking. It finally sunk in that she wasn’t going to be able to eat it for another decade at least and that was a really saddening thought.

With some time to spare before they were to be in their seats in class, Kelly had the idea to explore one of the outside areas of the academy grounds, which occupied a good two hours as they got lost in a hedge maze. They only got out in time thanks to Roody’s surprisingly good sense of direction. They could have flown out, but that would have defeated the purpose of the distraction.

As Aster and her roommates sat down in their first class of the day, she sized everything up out of habit. While it was listed as a classroom, it was more accurately described as an auditorium that was spatially expanded to an insane ratio, considering everyone in their year was able to comfortably fit inside. She knew Matt would have loved to inspect the enchantments, but her attention was taken by people watching.

There seemed to be endless variation of beasts and mana types, which gave her endless sources of intrigue.

Not that she just sat quietly and observed.

She chatted with her roommates and their neighbors about everything and anything that came to mind.

The group to their left had explored a sea based area that went out a few miles into the nearby waters, where they had found a few of the older students rehabilitating an ecosystem that was destroyed last year in a fight. While the older students hadn’t been able to explain much, the group was fascinated by the display and had learned a few useful tidbits.

The school’s various libraries weren’t similar to one another, and they were encouraged to visit each one if they wanted to take better advantage of all the available knowledge. Besides, the academy rewarded those who explored.

Exactly what was meant by that last piece of advice was a hotly debated topic in their little circle of pods, but all agreed that it was worth using some of their free time to explore the academy. So far, they had only seen a tiny fraction of what the sprawling campus had to offer.

Eddy, a Dunes Lizard, had seen a map of the entire beast side of the academy when he had talked to one of the Prefects, and showed them the recording he had taken, which proved that the buildings they had already walked around in were only a tiny portion of the allocated area for the bond academy.

After all, the entire planet was dedicated to the Red Feather Academy, lending credence to the idea there were places to explore away from the central buildings.

Before they could come to any actual conclusion, the professor walked in through a side door and Aster took note of her cat tail and ears, as they looked quite fetching on her.

“Good morning, students. My name is Professor Sa'dan. I want to welcome you all to Red Feather Academy, and to the Bond college in particular. Many of you would have preferred to not come here, but I believe you will all understand why the Beast Kingdom mandates such measures in the coming years.” Grinning, Professor Sa'dan shrugged. “Or you won't, but most do.”

Aster chortled quietly at the small joke, even as Kelly covered her face with a wing, trying to stifle her own twitter.

“Moving on, I want to take part of our class time to answer any questions you might have after spending some time in the academy. Things can be confusing. I know when I was in your seats, I had a million questions. Use the LocalNet to register your questions, and I’ll ask the top few before we start class.”

After thinking for a minute, Aster registered her questions to see that two of the three were already in the top five, and swished her tail in excitement, which caused Juan to toot a chortle as it tickled his side.

Professor Sa'dan laughed when she read the top comment. “You all think you are clever. But I’ll answer. First question. ‘What do you, Professor Sa'dan, think we need to know?’ That’s an easy question to answer. Have fun, explore, get into a little trouble, try some electives that don't sound interesting. This is meant to be a place for you to explore and find yourselves and what you enjoy in a safe environment. Try to push yourselves out of your comfort zones. I would never have learned that I really enjoyed magical chess if I didn’t join the club in school. Speaking of which, I am the resident Professor who runs the magical chess club, so if any of you are interested, I’ll see you after this year ends.”

Aster had heard of the game, but never had any inclination to join, but that was probably Professor Sa'dan’s point. She had ten years, if she didn’t try new things, she’d get bored in the first two years.

“Second question… ‘What do I think of the restrictions on bonds?’ First of all, you need to know that the Professors are all bonds, and have their own stories. Most of you come from loving bonds, but not all of us are so lucky. Some of my fellow Professors were only made a bond so they could be controlled in some way, and chose to break that bond after coming here. My bond is my best friend, but even then, being separated for a little and making our own ways has only solidified our friendship. So, even if you don't have a bad bond, this is a good opportunity for everyone involved. It’s important to be your own person outside of just your bond, which is something we’ve all struggled with.”

The next three questions followed the same vein, and Aster took note of not just what Professor Sa'dan said, but how she said it. While most of the answers felt honest, a few had the flavoring of ‘official answers’, or at least, that was what Aster sniffed out.

Once that was taken care of, and Professor Sa'dan promised to answer five more questions tomorrow, they moved on to the actual lessons about bloodlines.

There was nothing that Aster didn’t already know, as she had been trained by one of the best Pather Managers in the Empire for a large portion of her life. Despite that, the information proved useful to those like Kelly, Juan, and Roody, who had simply lived their lives without ever worrying too much about how their bloodline worked. It was instinctive for all of them after all.

That said, she paid attention and was able to answer her friends' questions most of the time. When they discovered that she knew most of it already, Aster couldn’t help but preen a little under their thanks.

Once that class ended, they immediately separated and everyone went to their bloodline specific classes.

Aster's vulpine lineage group was on the smaller end, with only sixteen types of various foxes. She was disappointed to see four variations of fire or heat-aligned foxes, but tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, they hadn’t chosen their mana type, even if it was objectively the worst.

Even as she shot her flame based cousins funny faces, a very handsome wind fox walked through the Professor’s door.

“Good morning children. My name is Professor Xila, and I will be the individual who walks you through the process of making your own humanoid form.”

As he spoke, Professor Xila quickly changed forms, first to a humanoid fox on two legs, but still distinctly a fox, then just as quickly to a human man with a tail and ears. Finally, he shifted into a completely unremarkable human with sandy-gray hair.

“The first thing to realize is that you have a choice. While it has long, long been a tradition in the Empire and beyond to have a firmly bloodline form and a firmly human form, the rise of the Monster Collective has prompted a third path, a simple anthropomorphistic variant of our bloodline forms. After all, many with bloodlines are prone to keeping some level of our heritage present in our human form, so why not extend that even further? Some even go so far as to eschew a humanoid form at all, but I do not advise this.”

Aster and everyone else yipped in surprise, but Professor Xila spoke over them. “There are many advantages to a human form, let alone a humanoid one. Clothes, weapons, armor, even tools, all of these have been made first and foremost for use by humans, and that will always be the case. There exist adaptations for those without hands to utilize much of our modern technology, but they remain adaptations. It can be quite inconvenient to live your life without hands, or to purchase clothing for a shape unlike that which most tailors work in, or what most stores sell. With that said, I encourage all of you to do what is comfortable. You are all immortals, should you later change your mind, you are free to do so. In fact, some constantly change their shape, trying on different forms as easily as our bonds might purchase a new outfit. It is all acceptable.”

A link popped up on her AI and Aster flicked an ear with everyone else who had clearly received the same message.

“Inside the message I sent you, there is a link to a service that can take pictures of your human’s family, and then simulate what you would look like as a sibling, child, cousin, or any other relation of theirs. If that is your dynamic, feel free to use it as a way to get a baseline appearance. Otherwise, over the course of this class, I will be teaching you first how to attain a fully human state, and from there, guiding you back into whatever form you prefer.”

At the raised tails, Professor Xila shook his head. “There is a reason we go to a full human first. Mostly, it's to make it easier to standardize your internal organs on a genetic level. One of the greatest benefits of a malleable form is the ability to have children with people outside our immediate species. That's only possible when everyone agrees on a baseline and that baseline is human.”

Aster lowered her tail with everyone else as her question was answered. That was interesting and made sense, so while it seemed like more work, she didn’t mind that.

“Take a few minutes to either play with the simulator, or pull up one of the random generators, then send me what your ideal form will look like. If you have already done so in the past, feel free to send that.”

Aster had, in fact, made dozens of bodies for herself, but all of them had gone to the wayside when she spent a life as Matt’s little sister in Folded Reflections.

Wanting to see how close it got, Aster used the link and was pleasantly surprised when the proposed form was pretty close to what she had lived as. It was a touch more clean and pretty than her Folded Reflections body had been, but that was to be expected.

How would software account for her breaking her nose and not bothering to remove the small bump that remained, or even the small scar near her eye from when she opened a package too forcefully and a chip cut her. How could it get the small smattering of sunspots she had gotten as a child living on a low Tier world to low Tier parents?

It couldn’t, and the form it proposed was without those little flaws, but was otherwise close enough to surprise her with its accuracy.

She still submitted her Folded Reflections body with all its little imperfections to Professor Xila, who didn’t seem surprised in the least that she didn’t make something more perfect.

After they waited for almost five minutes for Ploom to finish her form, Professor Xila started them on mana control exercises.

“I want to see what level of mana control you have, as that is generally a good indicator of your control over your spirit, and how long it will take you to unlock the ability to switch between your malleable and bloodline forms.”

Aster could have gone through the small exercise of moving a small ball through an obstacle course in her sleep, while in combat, or even both at the same time, but she didn’t show off. She simply completed the task that was asked of her without fanfare or sandbagging. She was surprised to learn that none of the others had been able to shapeshift from their human form to their bloodline forms before arriving, and while it wasn’t necessary to do so to take a human form, Professor Xila told them it was a good way to practice their control over their spirits. He assured them It would be nice to have something familiar to transform into when they were in the weird middle stages of forming their transformations.

Only one of the younger wood foxes had any real issues, but Professor Xila assured him that the difficulties wouldn’t hamper him in any way. He would just need to go a little slower to make sure he wasn’t hurt in the process which was good as Aster wouldn’t want to see even the fire foxes hurt themselves let alone the wood fox.

Once everyone was settled back in, Professor Xila explained how to control the spirit and use it to slowly change their physical forms, which Aster found fascinating. The fact that at Tier 15, they had enough control over their spirit that they could change it, and those chances would be reflected onto their physical bodies just seemed amazing.

That first day, all they did was get used to feeling their spirit, but Professor Xila assured them they would be standing on two legs before the end of the month.

He also mentioned that as those with smaller base forms, they would need to eat quite a lot of food in the coming days to get the calories, and more importantly, mass to increase their size quickly. Essence could replace the need for that, but it was a more advanced technique not taught to fresh immortals when they could simply eat a little more.

After class, everyone had some free time and collectively agreed to spend some time getting to know the other foxes. Aster even got to know the fire foxes, and while their elemental differences made being near them like being dumped in a hot bath, she put up with it long enough to learn their names and where they were staying.

Mana types aside, they all needed to look out for each other.

Foxes were one of the smaller populations in the academy, and if they didn’t want to get pushed aside by some of the larger groups, they needed to have each other's backs.

Their next class, the mage exercise class, was less about physically working out and more about being in a controlled area where they could move around freely after their body modification classes. The goal was to get used to any changes without needing to worry about running into walls or other people.

With none of them having gone through any changes, the class was mostly a social hour where everyone talked about what bodies they wanted to go for.

Roody projected a dashing looking humanoid form with a beard and hair combo that was reminiscent of his lion's mane, while Kelly created herself a body and form more reminiscent of Mara and the other phoenixes she knew, but with electric blue feathers replacing her hair.

After she complimented both of them on their desired forms, she showed her own form, to their praise. But what surprised them most of all was that she had already learned how to switch between her bloodline form and malleable form.

Aster didn’t really think it was hard, and tried to walk them through it, but neither figured it out in the two hour window they had for the class.

Up next was a class that Aster was looking forward to.

Tooth, Claw, and Paw was exactly what she had expected. A fighting class.

A burly woman who was some kind of bear stood next to a smaller man who reminded Aster of the mages she knew were their professors, or Coaches as they wanted to be called.

Coach Magdalene was the bear bloodline melee fighter, while Coach Theodore had a snake bloodline and was a practiced mage.

Coach Magdalene walked forward like a force of nature after she introduced herself. “This class is to teach you all how to fight in both your bloodline and human forms. Being able to quickly adjust to the different styles the two will have will make you a more dangerous fighter, which will keep you safe inside a rift.”

Coach Theodore stepped forward and Aster noticed his rosy cheeks that seemed unusual in a snake bloodline. “For us mages, it's a little different, but the same thing applies in general terms. You’d be surprised just how different magic can feel in a different body. Now, any of you who were on the Path of Ascension with your human all the way until Tier 15, please step forward.”

Aster looked around, but when she saw no one else stepping forward, she jumped into the air and floated down to where Coach Theodore stood.

Tail raised high, she sauntered forward even as the Coaches looked surprised. Coach Magdalene seemed bewildered as she said, “Well, that’s unusual. Usually we may have one or two who made it to Tier 10, but there haven’t been any who made it all the way in a while. What’s your name, role, and how far up could you delve?

Aster sat down primly and introduced herself. “My name is Aster, and I am a debuff support-type winter mage. The rest of my team was my human and his wife, both hybrid fighters, and we managed to delve peak Tier 16 rifts at Tier 14.”

She made certain to stick with strictly the official story, but Coach Theodore still looked impressed before continuing on. “Now, did any of you make it to or past Tier 10 on the Path? Come down if you have.”

This time, two more people came down. A sleek tiger whose muscles rippled under his skin with each step, and a horse with flames around its hooves and mane.

The tiger introduced himself first, having reached the ground before the horse. “My name is Gawain, and my team and I got to Tier 13 on The Path before stepping off voluntarily. My role was a frontline fighter, and wearing heavy armor, I protected my human and her friend, acting as an archer and mage respectively. We were able to delve up two Tiers as well, until we reached Tier 13 and needed to go down to one.”

The horse introduced herself with a bob of her head. “My name is Layla, and I got to Tier 12 before we fell off. My human and I acted as cavalry hybrid fighters, and we could consistently delve up one tier, or two if it suited us well.”

Coach Theodore clapped his hands. “Marvelous! Even better, we have one mage, one warrior, and one hybrid. These three will serve as our assistants for this year, and ensure that all of you are capable of at least defending yourselves. Part of your graduation requirements will be that you can clear a Tier 15 rift in a team of five, and that is often one of the harder aspects for many of our students. These three have been taught by some of the best teachers in the Empire in the form of their managers, and can pass along some tips you may find helpful.”

Coach Magdalene gestured to the right, where a set of targets appeared made from small enchanted monster forms with obvious protrusions where attacks would come out of.

“The lesson for today is to simply retaliate when you are being attacked. Aster, you first. Show us what you can do.”

At Coach Magdalene’s encouragement, Aster walked over to the indicated location and immediately sidestepped the green sticky liquid the monster shot out, and launched an [Ice Spear] at the construct in retaliation. Her attack was blocked by a mana shield, but a light appeared on the construct. When it attacked for a second time, the attack was faster and more accurate.

Aster still easily dodged and retaliated half a dozen times until all the lights were lit up, and the monster was attacking in a seemingly endless stream of strikes, trying to get her fur dirty.

Once she had dodged the seemingly maxed setting for a full minute, Coach Magdalene coughed and called her out.

“Well done, Aster. Can you explain how you did that to the rest of the class?”

Aster nodded even as she scampered back to a more central position. “It’s a fairly straightforward target. It doesn’t move much, and doesn’t utilize any form of skill to make its projectile harder to dodge. It’s like a low-tier spitter monster, and the attack is small enough that it’s easy to dodge. If you can prepare an attack ahead of time, do that. But otherwise, just go with a fast skill and utilize either your Concept or a Manipulation to nudge it on-track if it’s off target, or if your opponent moves.”

Aster blinked as Coach Magdalene shook her head with a grin.

“I don't expect most of you to be able to so accurately lead the construct’s attacks and keep the area mostly clean. We simply want you to not get hit by the projectiles and return at least one attack before the next one. As you saw with Aster, the more you successfully do so, the faster and more accurate the projectiles will get. If you can get to the third level in the next year, I’ll be ecstatic. The sixth level signifies you are fighting a ranged opponent two Tiers higher than yourself which is beyond what we expect of you currently. The first light signifies a Tier 14, and most of you should be able to get used to that fairly quickly. In our future classes, we will expand the types of training we do with a variety of constructs, but dodging and retaliating will be core skills that keep you alive inside almost any rift.”

As Coach Theodore had Gawain go through a similar melee style thing Coach Magdalene looked to Aster and Layla. “Can you two go around and help those who are struggling? If you can't help them, ping our [AI], and we will make our way to them, but there are a lot of students, and not a lot of us.”

Aster nodded with Layla and was about to turn to leave when Coach Magdalene asked her a question. “Judging by your performance your team could have stayed on the Path, couldn't they?”

Looking back, Aster nodded as she mostly told the truth. “My humans felt going on without me would be wrong, so they stepped off.”

Coach Magdalene tsked before waving them away.

Layla whinnied a noise of surprise. “You are really strong! I'm not sure I could have done as well...”

Trying to not be arrogant, Aster bobbed her head. “It's really just a lot of practice. Our trainers had us doing similar things all the time when we weren’t inside a rift. It's kinda fun after a while.”

Layla agreed. “Same, but I’m not sure we ever got as good as you. The three of us should make a team to delve. I heard the academy has a number of rifts they let the second years and above delve in, and with the Coach’s permission, we can delve early. I bet with the three of us teaming up, we can get permission early.”

Aster wasn’t entirely happy with the idea of having to delve with a real fire mage, but Layla seemed nice, and from Gawain’s display in the melee fighter test, she could tell he was quite competent as a front liner.

Still, she agreed. “That sounds fun, and I’d love to be able to delve and make new friends.”

With that settled, she walked through the lines and offered help to those poor unfortunates who were hit with the sticky green goop. Though, she stayed far away and kept a barrier made from her Concept around her to keep the gross stuff off her fur while trying to give guidance.

Not that a single suggestion could immediately make someone a master, but most of the people she stopped to help learned something new, and were able to dodge a little more frequently when she left. And that was really all it was about, which she made sure to remind those who seemed dispirited at their failures.

“I failed at tasks like this for months before even starting to get the hang of it. Don’t worry, and just try and improve a little today and a little tomorrow. By the end of the year, you won't even know how you found it hard.”

When she reached the area where Kelly and Roody were in two comically different sized safe areas, they immediately started questioning her on why she hadn’t told them she was a Pather.

Shrugging, she tried to brush it off. “Delving is only one part of my life, and I’d much rather talk about my ice cream tests than delving.”

Roody whimpered as he caught a face full of goop and fell to the ground, trying to wipe it out of his eyes. Aster noticed that he had been on the third level before failing, which was a lot better than everyone else was doing.

“Yes, but then I wouldn’t have bragged about delving two up with my team!” Roody’s complaint made her chortle.

“No, you wouldn't have. And it is impressive. I’ve had some of the best training in the Empire to get as good as I am today. You not having that and doing so well is worthy of bragging. See, you even keep getting to the third level. Try smaller fakeouts and see if that helps you.”

On Roody’s next attempt, he was able to dodge the third-level attack, but his own retaliation missed, which forced him to repeat the level. It was still an improvement as he at least was able to keep any more gross liquid out of his fur.

A task which Kelly was failing miserably at.

The poor bird had a smaller safe area, and was constantly getting hit and knocked to the ground, where she got covered in more of the goop.

“Aster, you need to save me! Pleeeeeeease!”

Aster backed away, seeing the frantic look in Kelly’s eyes as she pleaded for help. The poor bird seemed at the end of her ropes.

Activating her AI, she called for one of the Coaches to help her friend and skittered away to help someone who didn’t look like they wanted to share their goop. Sharing was great and all, but her fur was hard enough to keep pristine without green sticky liquids getting in it.

No thank you.

They spent a little more than three hours predicting the exercise before the Coaches dismissed all of them, which was when a blur of wings started chasing Aster.

“You won’t get away from me! You will be goopy too if I have anything to say about it!”

Aster immediately activated her buffs and ran back to their room, all the while being chased by Kelly who insisted on trying to land on her.

An hour later, the two of them chatted as the boys came out of their rooms, finally clean. Aster was serving her penance, helping dry Kelly’s feathers with small gusts of wind, which they both found fun, even if Kelly complained about the air being chilly. Though, Aster tried to explain that hot air was awful for the fur and feathers but Kelly was hearing none of it.

The four of them bickered good-naturedly as they went to dinner, and Aster was grateful that after giving her a little bit of a hard time, they didn’t treat her any differently after learning she was a good fighter.

Juan even wanted to try helping with her ice cream experiments, having a bit of a sweet tooth himself.

As the second day of her time at the academy closed out, Aster felt like she had carved out a little bit of home for herself.