The Path of Ascension

Chapter 221

Matt sat at the table of their house and stretched while waiting for Aster to finish getting ready.

Luna had given them a full three days off after their Tier 18 rift delve as she and Kurt set up their next phase of testing.

April, on the other hand, planned to accompany them to the city and help them set up their transport to The Citadel, Rusty’s capital planet, where an Ascension would be taking place in another three years.

Even as disconnected as they had been, the news that Yellow would be ascending had reached even their ears, both through the guild members they talked to and in the nearby town.

With five years of warning, Yellow had created an Empire-wide rush to The Citadel for those who were stuck at Tier 14 without their Concept, and those like them who wanted an advantage to creating their Intents. The former were desperate for any reason not to have to enter Minkalla, and everyone else was happy to get some additional progress on furthering their Domains.

At the same time, the Empire was massive, and it would take a full decade to reach The Citadel if they were to only travel through teleporters, but that wasn’t the only way to travel in the Empire.

Nearly the same day the news reached them, the local noble from the Adair family notified everyone that he was commissioning a transport vessel to take himself and anyone else who wanted to join the journey to The Citadel.

The optimistic portion of Matt saw it as a nice way for the noble to ensure everyone else was able to reach The Citadel in time, but his cynical side said it was either a way to reduce his own cost, or he was getting a kickback from each ticket sale.

That same side said it could be, and probably was, both.

Information about chaotic ships wasn't hidden, but they were both expensive to buy and expensive to run. The ship that would be stopping to get them was a Tier 25 cargo ship that took shipments of higher Tier foodstuffs between outer Empire worlds and the more populous inner Empire worlds normally, but had willingly allowed their contract to be bought out and redirected to The Citadel.

Matt was sure they would even be able to sell off their foodstuffs to the plethora of vendors in the six-planet system that would soon be flooded with people even if they wernet some of the more exotic food stuffs that usually went to capital worlds.

Immortals might not need to eat, but few chose to neglect their food intake. It was a good way to keep your body running smoothly, helped with biological processes such as recovering from healing cooldown, could serve as a cultivation aid when prepared by a professional chef, and ultimately just tasted good.

As one of the few Tier 45 planets, there was a sizable immortal population in the The Citadel system at all times. With an ascension given so much lead time, there would be even more, but Yellow had timed his ascension to coincide with the end of the Tier 10 Pather tournament, which would have already drawn in a large number of people.

They would be cramped even in the enormous cargo ship they would be aboard, and the ticket price wouldn’t be cheap.

Aster had asked why Luna couldn't just fly them with her own ship, or if she wasn’t healed enough by Kurt, but that had been disregarded. She only said that they needed to pay their own way on The Path, which made sense, even if it would be annoying.

As Aster finished getting ready to visit the largest city on this planet, the three of them prepared to spend a full two days relaxing.

April was waiting for them, and the first thing they noticed was that her once golden blonde hair now had a silvery sheen to it, and was cut much shorter.

“Decided to change things up?” His question was met with a grin.

“Exactly. I’ve been blonde for nearly twenty years, and it was time to move on. It's kinda fun, and I'm not planning to have kids any time soon, so I’m free to go wild.”

Aster asked the question on all of their minds. “Kids? Why would that matter?”

April gestured to her hair. “Hair color, eye color, skin color, and general size aren’t controlled factors in the Empire, but it's recommended to choose one of the accepted forms if you are deliberately trying for a child, if only for the kids' sake. There is also a social custom where, if you settle down for an extended time, you change your form to match the locals if you are on a low enough Tier world for that to be a thing. Better to blend in and all.”

April contented to explain some of the social exceptions of higher Tier which Matt thought over as they flew up and nearly past the atmosphere, where they could fly as fast as his full mana output could take them.

It seemed to make sense, and it explained the genetic diversity that he saw on a higher Tier planet like this, as opposed to his home planet having everyone be some shade of tan to pale, while the next planet over had people of a much darker skin tone.

It just wasn’t something he ever really thought of. Immortals, with their ability to change their genetics, would pass down any of a million variations of skin, hair, and eye color to any children.

It also explained why the general populations didn't vary so much. Mortals had more kids, and those kids would marry amongst themselves, quickly outnumbering any single variation that an immortal might breed into a local population. When that was combined with the fact most people never left the city they were born in let alone the continent or planet populations started too look homogeneous in comparison to the more populated systems.

Matt wasn’t able to ponder the idea for too long as they quickly arrived at the city, and the first thing they did was stop by a governmental building to register for a spot to The Citadel.

It was annoying that they needed to do it in person, but it was the rule the Adair family had set up. Their reason was enhanced security, but that was bullshit, and everyone knew it. He was sure it was truly to drive more traffic to the city and its amenities more than anything else. AI signatures could be faked, but it was hard enough that almost no one bothered for small things like this.

When they finally got to the front of the line, Matt nearly swore at the man sitting behind the desk.

“Standard fare for a Tier 15 in the vacuum of a cargo hold is a Tier 16 mana stone. A place with a breathable atmosphere will cost a Tier 17 mana stone per person. A bunk in a room with five other people is a Tier 18 mana stone, and finally, a private room is a Tier 25 mana stone. No exceptions. No negotiations.”

The man’s bored tone suggested he had both explained this and dealt with the expected reactions for days, and a probe at his cultivation showed he was Tier 16, and very well could have been working here since the news was spread.

Despite their wealth in items, they didn’t have any Tier 19 mana stones, though they did have seven Tier 18 stones from their successful delve of the rift yesterday. So while they could afford it, things would be cramped and uncomfortable.

Liz opened her mouth to speak, but the man behind the desk flicked a finger at them, and their AIs notified them of a packet of information being sent their way. As Matt scanned it, he was half tempted to find the noble of this place and punch them in the nose.

They were offering credit to anyone who couldn’t afford the initial cost of the ticket for the small fee of thirty five percent interest… compounded every decade from when they left for The Citadel. For the slow, methodical delving rate of most Tier 14 teams struggling to reach Tier 15, or even those who had reached Tier 15 or higher, this was a serious debt that they would struggle to pay back in a reasonable time frame.

Matt almost laughed in anger as he realized that it was even worse for those under Tier 15 who still needed to do mortal things, like breathe, as they would need to pay for the much more expensive tickets.

This was pure, shameless extortion.

Flipping through his lessons with Luna, Kurt, and April, he understood the reasoning the Adair's were using to get away with such a high initial cost and high percentage on the loan. The transfer to The Citadel wasn’t compulsory, and they also had the option of using the teleporters, buying their own ship, or even renting space in someone else's ship.

All things Matt noticed were available with a quick AI search of the PlanetNet.

The prices for the non-noble backed ships were cheaper, in some cases suspiciously cheap, but there was a variable of risk there. While the transfer would be registered by the local AIs, there wasn’t anything stopping someone from robbing you in chaotic space and simply saying there were bandits or something that intercepted them, no matter how unlikely that was.

After a brief conversation, they decided they would pay for the bunks in a shared room.

The man almost tried to charge them for a bunk for Aster, but seeing her small size and understanding she could share a bunk with Liz without issue, he relented and only charged them for an atmosphere ticket for her, saving them a bit of money.

April hadn’t interfered with the purchase, and Liz asked as soon as they left the building, “Should we have bargained harder? Gone somewhere else? Punched him in the face?”

The last comment earned a snort from April. “The last would have been a bad idea no matter how good it would have felt, and for the rest, it's up to you. It might have been worth your time to shop around and talk to the others with ships. This system has a lot of traffic that will most likely be moving towards The Citadel in the next few years, but those choices would have either gotten you there a year or more early, or cut it so close you wouldn't have wanted to risk it. And there is always the risk of bandits, even if it's very rare. With so many ships moving towards The Citadel, it's easier than ever to pick off a smaller ship or two.”

April shrugged as she finished. “I think it was a fine choice to take the Adair ship.”

Matt pursed his lips, wanting to find some way to refute her, but ended up coming up empty. While he was pretty sure the Adair family and the ship were acting as pirates themselves, clearly taking advantage of everyone, he couldn’t discount the fact that they might not be making as much money as he believed.

He had no idea of the actual margins of shipping high Tier foodstuffs over long distances, but knew from his Folded Reflections life as both a guild leader and chef that high Tier food was expensive to buy, and even more to sell. As a chef, he had seen the paper thin margins most restaurants operated at for most of their meals.

Thinking back to the prices, he still doubted it.

Unless the foodstuffs were being thrown away, they could be sold at their destination to make up most of the cost. Knowing there was nothing he could do, Matt decided to ignore it and hope too many people didn’t take the Adair’s extortionist loans, though he knew some would be forced to do so.

Once they finished up there, April left them to do her own thing after dropping them off at the hotel they had rented. They splurged and bought a nicer room, but not a suite, as they didn’t intend to spend too much time in their room on this trip.

Instead, they immediately went to an art gallery they had been looking at that promised a psychedelic adventure through color and sound. It was put together by a local Tier 17 artist with a modicum of fame.

Matt felt the world spinning as he stumbled out of the end of the hallway while Liz laughed.

“Don’t be a baby. It wasn't that bad.”

Aster, who was covering her eyes with her paws, groaned, “That was awful. How can you enjoy that?”

Matt nodded, even if he knew it wasn’t an entirely fair complaint. Part of the issue was that both he and Aster had an adverse reaction, and through their bond, that reaction had fed off the other’s, and they hadn’t recognized it as such until it was too late.

Liz looked like she had just taken a stimulant and bounced on her feet. “Come on! Next up is the motion statues exhibit, and it seems less mind bendy.”

Matt and Aster were both grateful that it was much easier on their stomachs, and all three of them were able to enjoy their walkthrough of the varied statues that told stories through their slow movements.

But undeniably, their favorite was the Exhibit of Rift Monsters, which was amusing to walk through and read the comments given by the artist.

Aster snickered. “Ah yes, the shadow ape. A formidable opponent only to be challenged by those a Tier up or with a direct counter.”

She snorted at the end, and Matt had to bite his lip to resist laughing though Liz joined his bond without hesitation.

“I don't think we’ve fought anything in here at the recommended Tiers or with the strategies suggested. Are we bad delvers?”

She dramatically gasped, which made Matt lose it, and he joined in on the laughing.

It wasn’t actually funny, but more so absurd how different their point of views were from the average person's when it came to delving.

After they left the art gallery they moved towards another immortal attraction. While open to anyone with at least an AI implant, the game center’s main clientele were immortals. This was in large part thanks to their complete lack of true biological needs allowing them to do year- or even decade-long gaming sessions with no adverse health effects.

While Matt had never actually played any game that even featured full-dive capabilities, he knew they existed. SSEs, or Single Server Experiences, were some of the largest games in the realm, allowing countless individuals to share a massive virtual world, and some of the largest had an entire planet dedicated to a single immensely popular game. There were even some multiplanetary games, which from what Matt knew of, inter-world communications had to be the result of one or more Talents supporting the connection.

Still, by the time he’d really learned about them, Matt had been far too busy with the Path to get into them, and the few games that his AI was compatible with that he had tried out had always felt… wasteful. He didn’t need to worry about saving his mana, after all, and he could always benefit from practicing his manipulation skills instead. He’d heard that the Unbroken had used a similar setup for training, but Matt could just practice in reality for free, and had never felt the draw.

There was actually a lot of really impressive enchanting-work that went into the simulations, Matt found as he looked into the technology. Servers were always built around the proper [Artificial Intelligence] Tier 26 skill, but they rarely used just that. [Library] for storage, [Simulate Item], [Simulate Building], [Simulate Motion], and [Simulate Water] were just the absolute tip of the spear for the utter gauntlet of simulation skills involved, and while it was possible to interface with many games with just [Artificial Intelligence], [Heads-Up Display] and [Imagined Reality] could supplement or outright replace the enchanted interface pods if Tier 20 or 32 skills were in the budget.

But he tried to not get too sucked into the inner workings of what he was quickly learning was involved in all city AI setups. They were, after all, intentionally trying to waste time, and Liz and Aster both wanted to try out a proper game, so they rented a set of pods and rented a local multiplayer game they could try out for a few hours as they grew accustomed to the technology. The game they chose was a non-combat production style game, where the three of them needed to work in a stylized restaurant and take ever more complex orders while food literally flew through the air.

It started easy enough, but eventually, they were overwhelmed by the chaos, and they failed the level and started over with a few buffs they had earned from their last run. They played that game for a while before moving onto a tower defense game, where one of them took turns defending against the others, who sent wave after wave against the defender.

It was dark when they left the still brightly glowing gaming center and went to find something to eat. Instead of trying to find some fancy restaurant, they decided to try and find the lowest Tier restaurants they could, and then use their greater cultivation to quickly process the food before moving on.

They hit seven restaurants before Aster finally tapped out, saying she was stuffed.

Feeling quite full himself, Matt also bowed out, even as Liz put down two more bowls of noodles at their final restaurant. After that, they wandered the city for another hour as they let their stomachs settle and went back to their rooms to sleep in.

The next day, Matt woke up to a cold chest as Aster decided she needed to curl up on him. Wrapping her up in a blanket, he was about to use [Fire Manipulation] to grab some heat from the air and bring it around his chest to warm him up, when he heard the shower was on.

Aster was too damn cold for her own good, but Liz clearly knew she had done that, and simply left him to his fate. A decision she would soon regret.

Slipping into the bathroom, he grabbed Liz and hugged her to his frozen chest despite her squeals and squirming.

“Let me go, you asshole! You’re freezing, and I just warmed up.”

Matt tucked his head into her neck as he laughed. “This is vengeance for letting me get that cold.”

After they both warmed up, Matt and Liz found Aster flopped on the couch with a show playing on the screen mounted to the wall.

Matt flicked her tail as he went to sit down. “Any plans before our massages?”

Aster let out a long groan. “I’m not moving from here until the massages. I want to be pampered. I’ve got this knot in my left leg that’s killing me.”

Matt patted her through her fluff in agreement.

He was most certainly looking forward to a few hours of pampering.

Like all good things, their vacation came to an end as they returned to Luna and Kurt, who welcomed them back into the grind of delving.

Or at least, that was what they expected.

Instead of throwing them into a rift, Luna sat them down outside and paced in the air as she talked.

“You three have reached a point in an Ascender's training that only those who make it reach. As Tier 13s, you have completed a low Tier 18 delve, which is about as high as anyone can delve up. Even sending you into a mid Tier 18 rift would mean a single mistake was fatal, and I’d need to save you, which is a pointless level of risk. So instead of pushing you to delve higher, we will start more detailed training.”

She jumped to the ground and then asked, “If I send a [Fireball] at you, what is your reaction?”

At the same time, a small marble sized flame appeared over her tail, which gently swished back and forth.

Knowing his manager, Matt immediately rolled backwards off the chair he was sitting on and then to the side, all the while watching her with his spiritual perception.

Seeing she wasn’t actually attacking them, all three of them stopped and Luna continued. “Dodging is the preferred defense, but what do you do if you can't dodge? If you are surrounded?”

Matt got up, and after brushing himself off, said, “Block?”

Luna arched an eyebrow at him, even in cat form. “Is that a question or a statement, Matt?”

Smiling, he said, “Yes.”

That earned him a flick of the tail and accompanying [Fireball]. Dropping to the ground, he was able to dodge it and swore he heard a chuff of amusement, even as Luna spoke using [Air Manipulation].

“Dodging is a valuable tool, as it takes minimal energy and costs nearly nothing to avoid damage. Most people consider blocking to be the second, but why?”

Liz spoke up this time. “Blocking costs energy, but if you were going to get hit, it's better to spend the mana to use a spell to block it.”

Luna nodded but sat back on her rear legs before shrugging. “That's all true, but I'd consider you all to be missing an obvious answer.”

She looked at Matt and said. “[Fireball] me.”

Doing as instructed, he cast a [Fireball] at Luna.

Anyone observing this from the outside would have seen a large man trying to murder a small black cat, but Matt knew the small cat was the most dangerous person on this planet by a large margin, and didn’t hold back in the slightest.

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but his spell just fell apart like a paper ball hitting water, with bands of fire flaking off as the ball traveled until it was gone, less than a foot away from Luna.

Matt felt like Aster as they both cocked their heads at the sight.

“Instead of blocking when you can't dodge, it's sometimes better to dissipate an enemy's spells. This will be our first lesson of your advanced training.”

Kurt interjected with a raised finger as his pen flicked back and forth, writing, “This is one of those things that's hard to start and harder to master. Practically every spell you encounter will need to be deconstructed differently, and people can reinforce their spells to counter this, though rift monsters basically never do.”

His pen hesitated for a moment, but Luna seemed to say what he was thinking. “This is typically a thing only taught to Tier 25s and higher in the army because it takes a degree of spiritual awareness, Domain strength, and a whole lot of practice. It’s my specialty, and I don't normally teach it until Tier 18 or so, but you three need something to challenge yourselves with.”

After that, Luna went over how to actually dismantle a spell.

“The first step is identifying the skill, something which is a lot easier when you have a copy of the spell in your own spirit.”

Aster didn’t have a copy of the spell, but Luna simply had her feel the spell she had hovering over her tail.

“Now send mana into the spell, but don't unleash it.” Seeing they all did as instructed, she continued. “Good. Now, look at how the skill is constructed in the air. Try and find the weak points. The nexuses and crossroads. Break enough of them, or the right one, and the spell will fall apart.”

All three of them easily dissipated their spells, and Luna grinned at them, white teeth shining.

“Now all you need to do is dissipate my [Fireball]s.”

Saying that, Luna conjured three [Fireball]s above her tail and started throwing them at the three of them.

While the fireballs didn’t harm them upon impact, they did leave a burning sensation painful enough that they quickly learned they needed to dodge.

Matt slipped around a lick of flame as he pulsed his Concept, trying to drain mana from his surroundings, but Luna immediately suppressed his Domain with her own.

“Don’t try to run before you can walk, Matthew.”

Thusly rebuked, he returned to studying the skill structure and sending a stream of mana to unravel the spell. He failed utterly, and was rewarded with a fireball to the face.

Aster seemed to have the right idea, he concluded, in trying to run away to get more time to analyze and attack the skill structure. He dodged another fireball and tried running past it, studying the spell for weaknesses.

When that didn’t yield results, he pulled out his sword and started using [Dispelling Edge], comparing that skill’s effect to Luna’s new method. From what he could tell, it worked similarly, cutting through the threads of the spell's structure.

Where it differed, however, was in specificity. Though far more efficient than anything Matt could even dream of accomplishing at the moment, it cut through the entire spell rather than just the important parts, like destroying a building by cutting the entire thing in half, rather than taking out the supports. The advantage, of course, was in not needing to know where those supports were for each different building.

Once he saw that, Matt put away his blade and started to change his strategy.

If there was one thing Matt had in spades, it was raw mana, and after getting some distance from Liz and Aster, he directed most of his mana pool to freely flow into the air, and using his mana control, he directed his mana towards the [Fireball]s Luna sent at him.

Instead of attacking the weak points of the spell mid-flight, Matt just threw thousands of mana at the spell, hoping to break anything.

And it worked.

He almost didn’t expect it, but the spell unraveled like a ball of flaming yarn and he had to resist cheering. He most certainly wasn’t doing it the way Luna wanted, but now that he had a feel for it, he was able to start making more directed attacks at the spell's structure.

Matt then ran into his arch-enemy. His mana control. To do what Luna wanted, he needed to be able to feel a moving spell's structure, identify the weak points of said skill, and then finally pick those weak points apart with as little mana as possible.

His spiritual sense was good enough that he was able to identify the skill structures without too much issue, but when it came to picking the spell apart, he ran into a wall.

He had oven mitts on and a chainsaw, where everyone else was working with a scalpel.

Even with years of training, his mana control was still behind where the others were. Though he had made up ground, the others weren’t stagnant, and had pulled ahead while increasing their own mana control as well.

After the others got the hang of the new skill through a few weeks of training, he was starting to lag behind unless he just threw mana at the problem. Liz in particular was doing quite well; her expertise with stealing spells from her opponents translated admirably to their current task.

He eventually started closing in on the ladies’ success, and while his method was far less efficient than either of theirs, he was succeeding.

Once they were dispelling the spells with some regularity, Luna stopped them. “Now that you have the first step down, it's time to work on a skill I haven’t deliberately made easier to dispel.”

***

After several months of explosive training, Luna directed them back at the rifts. “Now I want you to delve Tier 13 rift while only using two offensive spells, and either dodging or dispelling all the attacks. No armor spells at all.”

The first rift Matt got was one with swarms of mice, and Luna had him destroy it before making a new one. The next one had centaur-like monsters that cast half a dozen projectile spells, which was exactly what Luna wanted.

In a real fight, Matt managed to dispel exactly zero spells and was forced to dodge everything, but he felt he was growing used to the training. Though. he knew every attempt at dispelling a spell cost him far more mana than [Cracked Phantom Armor] would have used to block a same Tier spell.

Once they got used to dispelling attacks, Luna changed their training once more. She had them delving Tier 15 rifts with a single spell as a group, but never allowed them to use a synergistic spell, or even one of their more frequently used spells.

When she told him he was allowed to use [Cracked Mana Spear], Matt suspected something was wrong, and had that confirmed as he entered the rift and found himself in a small tunnel system.

The training was brutal, as all of Luna’s training was with her perfectionist tendencies, but Matt knew there was a method to the madness, and tried his best to internalize the lessons she was teaching them.

Once they became proficient with even their oddest spells, Luna’s training shifted once more to delving with simulated injuries.

Fighting Tier 15 monsters with both his legs ‘broken’ was both annoying and dangerous. Matt actually had his right arm broken in that delve, and had to rely on more spells than he would have liked, but he also grew a new appreciation for his ability to fly with his Concept after that delve.

Liz was even forced to spend some time at the local hospital under the tutelage of a Tier 20 healer. Her tuition was an eye watering fifty Tier 17 mana stones, but they paid it at Luna’s insistence.

While Liz still wasn’t pleased about being a healer, she kept most of her complaints to bedtime chats, and even then, it was primarily centered around how she was expected to treat even the absolute idiots who injured themselves doing something stupid with care and kindness.

His question if she’d had to deal with any kids who tried to fly using bedsheets for wings cost him dearly, but was so very worthwhile.

The training still paid dividends, though. Liz had outpaced undirected healing spells for efficiency quite some time ago, but she was still improving, and was nearly able to reattach limbs already. She’d never be as good as a trained healer, let alone Melinda, but Matt was proud that she was delving into all aspects of blood magic, even the non-glamorous ones.

It felt like only weeks later when Luna had Kurt dispel all the rifts they had been using and told them to get ready to travel to Yellow’s Ascension.

The fact they would also be getting their second Legacies was only icing on the cake.