The Path of Ascension

Chapter 242

With the healing cooldown mostly dissipated, Matt, Liz, and Luna left the system in Matt’s ship. With three full-sized adults, things were a little more cramped than Matt was accustomed to, but it wasn’t actually that bad, even with everyone in human form.

Instead of critiquing their Aperology attempts, Luna only touched on their methods of breaking into rifts and offered a few ways for them to improve. Nothing was groundbreaking or even all that immediately helpful, but Matt chalked it up to Luna not really caring about things they would never really get to use on The Path.

Mostly, she focused on their usage of wide-area magic, namely their manipulation skills. There, she was as helpful as she always was, and Matt was already thinking of the different ways he could implement her tips the next time he got to shove mountains of material around.

Granted, it was unlikely that he’d need to do so anytime soon, but there was always the possibility he’d need to level a mountain in one of their upcoming rifts. Or maybe he would get seriously injured again, and need to spend more downtime on some barren rock, trying to make it livable. Terraforming budgets typically got slashed during wartime, and there were few other ways he could discreetly utilize his mana regeneration.

The trip to Harper’s capital didn’t take that long, all told, and from there, Liz bade them farewell as she set off to meet the Bondsman. Neither of them liked how much they had to separate just after they’d gotten married, but Liz needed to learn how to utilize her final Minkalla reward safely.

Besides, Matt, or rather Quill, was in for an interesting few months, so he wouldn’t feel too bad.

Harper had said way back during his Tier 10 tournament that they would find a way to give him some personalized training with telekinesis skills, but he hadn’t expected their method to be so… obvious.

Instead of setting up personalized lessons, which Quill was sure would break five Pather restrictions and quite possibly a dozen others, they had organized a mass lesson that anyone with an interest in force magic could attend, free of charge.

[Mage Hand] was the first spell in the [Telekinesis] skill family, the same way [Side Slide] compared to [Teleport], or [Fireball] to [Meteor Swarm]. While [Telekinesis] was a broad-scale, high-range continuum of applied force in just about any way that the caster could visualize, [Mage Hand] was limited to a single object within a fairly short area, with far lower power and fidelity.

It still had its uses, even outside of simply being an entry-level force skill. When upgraded a few times, it was more mana-efficient than [Telekinesis] was on single objects, and could be manipulated either fully autonomously according to basic directions, or act in perfect sync with the caster, effectively giving them a third arm with far more reach than usual.

Granted, not many people did upgrade it, not when [Telekinesis] existed, and [Mage Hand], while useful to those who did specialize in it, was typically cast aside in favor of [Watchmaker’s Fingers], [Hundred Hands], or [Telekinesis] as they became available.

This wasn’t the first workshop that Harper had given, as they usually had them once every few centuries. But every time, the turnout was in the millions, ranging from Tier 3s strutting around in Academy uniforms to Tier 45s whose mere presence nearly took Quill’s breath away as he passed them in the overcrowded spaceport.

Silverheath was oddly normal for a capital planet, at least in Quill’s experience. While East Flower was teeming with plant life entwined with every aspect of life, and the Citadel practically revolved around martial discipline and physical perfection, Harper’s world just looked like any other developed system in the Empire, albeit perhaps a bit more technological than most. Floating bridges and buildings abounded, with massive metal platforms that functioned as barges ferrying people between islands, or even between different levels of the same building.

As he waited in line for his platform to his hotel, Quill took the opportunity that being reconnected to the EmpireNet afforded him to check in on the progress of Justinian’s trial.

Linda had fallen on her sword, of course, but it was looking like Seymour, her head of security, might also be headed for the death penalty. While he and his defense were saying he was just an unwitting participant, there was evidence suggesting that he had been the one to personally abduct Justinian all those years ago. The evidence was an AI recording from a ‘third party postcognitor’ which Quill assumed was the Emperor. It still needed additional corroboration, but things seemed promising.

Linda’s son hadn’t been able to be linked to any crimes related to Justinian beyond his frivolous spending of essence stones, but even for that, he and his mother simply stated she had given them to him without explaining where she got them.

Quill didn’t believe that for a second, but there wasn’t any evidence proving otherwise, not even from the third party postcognitor. Perhaps it wasn’t the Emperor, then.

On the other hand, Hardy’s public lackadaisical attitude played in his favor in this instance, he had pled guilty to smuggling charges, and would spend the next eight hundred years on a penal crew after paying most of his personal net worth in various fines.

Under the mask, Quill scowled. He felt the punishment was too lax, but he didn’t blame Frederic for that. All the reports that had become public during the trial showed that, at least for the most part, Linda really had acted alone when interacting with Justinian.

What made him happiest was the news about Ilkor Hastings. He had been deposed as the Duke of House Hastings, stripped of his personal assets, and would be spending a century on a penal crew for dereliction of duty, attacking down, accepting bribes, and trying to cover up his involvement in an Imperial investigation.

Ilkor hadn’t been tied to the actual kidnapping, which fit with Frederic’s prediction, but that was still quite the list of charges leveled at a sitting duke; far too many to allow him to remain a noble.

House Hastings didn’t get off scot-free either. They had to pay astronomical fines out of the coffers of the house, and the new house head, Ilkor’s cousin Irene, had publicly spoken against her cousin's actions and promised to keep a much tighter watch on her vassals. But there was a coldness to her bearing that Quill didn’t like, especially when paired with one of the few times he was personally mentioned outside of the trial itself.

“I want to thank Quill and Torch specifically for their initiative in this investigation, and their crucial role in bringing the guilty to justice. My family and I wish them all the best in the trials and tribulations they have ahead of them, as theirs is a Path that few are able to see to the end.”

It was innocuous enough… but Quill suspected she was mad that their house had been implicated in Ilkor’s deeds, but he doubted she was mad at Ilkor. From the short time he had spent with Ilkor, Quill was sure the entire family believed everything was owed to them. Her behavior, and statements, indicated that she wasn’t going to let this go so easily.

There was less media attention on the trial than Quill would have liked, but at least they were mostly in support of Justinian. Some seemed to think that the entire trial was a sham, and was just the result of some uppity kid trying to get out of a contract they regretted, but they had comparatively little traction.

It did lead him down the rabbit hole of seeing what the public opinion of himself and Torch was, and it was almost depressing just how much more media attention the AI recordings that had been submitted as evidence were getting than the trial itself.

Quill fighting a Tier 19 got most of the air time, but not all. Torch punching her way through the vault and saving an anonymous-looking Justinian was a featured clip, but his fight was scrutinized within an inch of its life. Quill had expected the step to blank out Justinian would be taken, but making the man look as bland as possible only helped to hide him from those who could do the exact same to him again.

Plenty of stations were calling them the ‘Next Light and Shadow,’ just like they had done with Queen a few months prior, and Bob and Weave a decade before her. Of course, not all voices were positive, though it was almost laughable hearing them talk.

How a Tier 35 expert expected him to ‘not get hit’ by a melee fighter four Tiers higher than himself was beyond his understanding, but it was almost as bad as the station who called his planned counters to Linda’s few well-known abilities ‘genius.’ By then, his platform had arrived, and Quill just washed his hands of the whole farce.

He still felt just a bit unnerved with all the extra attention, and practically pulled his hotel room apart looking for any spy gear. Sure, it was proper protocol for whenever he would be wearing his Mask, but he was just a bit more paranoid than was helpful. It didn’t rule out anything particularly esoteric or high Tier, but there was almost nothing that he could realistically do about that type of surveillance.

Well, he could go to dinner. Harper had mentioned there was an up-and-coming restaurant called Circe’s Ectarin Feast in the Nikita region of Silverheath, and he’d booked his hotel accordingly.

He did accumulate a few reporters on his way there, with varying degrees of professionalism, and by the time he’d reached Circe’s, the tiny restaurant was practically overflowing with columnists following Quill like so many baby birds.

He ignored the chatter of the aspiring interviewers filling most of the building as he placed his order, following Harper’s recommendations for what was particularly good, and finally deigned to acknowledge his flock of chattering ducklings.

“We are in a restaurant, in case you hadn’t managed to notice yet. Typically, when within one, people utilize their mouths to eat, instead of talk. I would advise you to do so, but mind that I will not be paying for you.”

A few of them sheepishly ordered food, but most just ignored his hint and redoubled their questions.

Once the waiter had left, Quill answered the questions of those who had ordered food right up until his own meal came out, whereupon he promptly returned to ignoring them in favor of his dinner.

Through his spiritual senses, he watched as those who ordered food first picked at it and then started digging in more seriously. Harper hadn’t given him any instructions to ensure that Circe’s stayed hidden, so he was perfectly fine giving the Tier 13 restaurant some attention.

One woman even stood up from her seat and went to go interview the waiter and possibly chef, if her entering the back of the restaurant was any indication. He took note of her after that; she was a woman to watch out for if she could realize the bigger prize.

She must have realized that at best she’d be one of a dozen people recounting his answers, or she could pivot entirely and get an exclusive on an up and coming restaurant.

After he answered most of the questions and enjoyed his food, he paid and left to go hit a few of the exclusive Tier 15 bars and lounges, where he mingled and dealt with wanna-be sycophants who tried to attach themselves to his service. He also had to fend off dozens of advances from some very attractive people, some of whom merely wanted the notoriety of sleeping with a celebrity and others who insinuated they were looking for something more permanent.

There were also a large number of noble sons and daughters who met up with him, trying to either earn his friendship through forced displays or promises of gifts once he was off the Path. He was fairly surprised at that; after his encounter with the Hastings, he figured the nobles would peg him as someone who hated their ilk, but they happily sent their children to rub shoulders with him.

Thankfully, Quill had timed his arrival such that there were only a few days before Harper’s lessons started, so his forays into Silverheath’s social circles were limited.

Things calmed down there, as Quill joined the Introductory Force Magic section of the seminar, by far the largest group of the entire lesson. It was so popular in fact, it had to be split into multiple distinct groups, each hosted by their own clone of Harper. Quill was in the group containing the other Pathers and Academy members, but he paid them no mind as the Royal began to speak.

“Telekinesis and its related spells are deeply unintuitive, especially those used to more conventional manipulation skills. Instead of directing the position or even motion of an object, one must control the force applied to said object. It is similar to the way in which air mages move objects other than air, by manipulating the wind upon the object rather than the object itself.

“Most pertinently, this means that when contesting control of a material, one cannot command it to remain motionless; any action taken by an opponent must be manually countered such that the net force remains null. Further complicating this factor is that just as force magic is nigh-invisible to the spiritual senses of observers, so too is it nigh-invisible to the caster as well. Relying purely on the feedback provided by the spell is surpassingly frustrating and difficult, and often results in prospective users relying on brutish applications of the magic. Nevertheless, for those dedicated enough to try, it is well worth the investment. Also those who show the best promise will get a few one on one lessons after this is done.”

A dagger floated out of Harper's sleeve and then twirled around them. “All of you feel free to try and disrupt this. I am using a freshly absorbed [Mage Hand] and just my years of experience to move this blade around.”

Quill joined in with everyone else, and even with him throwing a full 10,000 MPS into [Air Manipulation], the blade never wavered. Even a few more obvious skills were cast, but the greatest response any of them got was for the dagger to spin and cut one skill in half.

“Alright. Next to your seats, you should find a number of balls and fabrics. The fabrics are lighter, but some of you might struggle to pick something up that is so malleable. If you have that issue, try with the lightest of the balls. If anyone has questions, just get my attention, and I’ll try to help.”

Quill picked up the balls, tested their weights before doing the same with the cloth.

Activating [Mage Hand], he focused on the thin linen square.

Nothing happened.

Trying to picture a translucent hand lifting the square of fabric up, nothing happened once again.

Concentrating his focus, he tried to picture the air lifting the cloth, but even that didn’t work.

Eventually, he just commanded the cloth to lift, which finally worked.

Like a leaf in the wind, the cloth jumped and vibrated but slowly lifted off his lap and into the air, where it hovered.

With how it bounced around, calling it hovering might be a generous word, but he had figured it out.

Force magic was truly different from the rest of his skills, and he could see why most didn’t delve into the finer applications of the magical branch.

There seemed to be almost zero crossover from his elemental manipulation skills, and there was only a tangential crossover from his raw mana control skills. The entire line of telekinesis skills seemed to be their own beast.

The rest of the day was spent with the Harper clone moving through their block and offering suggestions and new challenges to work on for those pulling ahead.

What Quill found both interesting and frustrating was how getting good at picking an object up with [Mage Hand] seemed to have zero cross-over with, say, pushing something. The idea of a magical hand just picking things up and moving them around was completely wrong. It was more like a single application of freeform telekinesis.

Still, he learned, and with the ability to throw millions of mana at the problem, he quickly got better. By the end of the third week, he even had a half-decent command of the skill. He wouldn't be faking any of the elemental manipulation skills anytime soon, but he was pretty sure he could use [Mage Hand] to disrupt his opponents in a fight.

As Quill was heading back to his room after that day's lessons, he was walking through a crowd of people and felt someone watching him.

They didn’t seem directly hostile, but their gaze lingered a little too long for it to just be a casual investigation of his identity. There was a purpose to their gaze that his spiritual perception noticed, and it set him on edge.

Pathers weren’t invincible, and he had made plenty of enemies in recent days, with the Hastings house being only one of them and the closest in immediate proximity.

After all, if news stations were picking apart what was available of his fight with Linda, the other Great Powers most certainly had also taken notice of him as well.

He made it all the way to the hotel without any incident, but the moment he stepped out of the elevator and entered the hall leading to his room, he felt the air shift as a formation was activated.

He withdrew a talisman and sent a bit of mana into it immediately, but instead of covering him in a layer of wind to act as a shield, the talisman just sputtered uselessly.

Spreading his spiritual sense through the restrictions, Quill found out what was wrong; the formation was an anti-spell formation. Meant to replicate higher Tier skills, the method of attack was fairly simple. It would disrupt any mana formation in the area, making it difficult to control spells and keep them stable. While it was generally a minor obstacle to most mages, and would simply reduce how many separate effects they could maintain at once, the effect on talismans was more pronounced, as they wouldn’t have his mana control or Concept behind them.

Melee fighters with mostly internal buffing skills were almost entirely unaffected, which was why he wasn’t at all surprised when the nearest door to him opened up, and a masked man charged at him with a short dagger in each hand.

Matt wasn’t a mage, and could easily fight under such restrictions, but he suspected this was as much a test as it was a serious assassination attempt. This hallway had a dozen cameras, and he was sure there were a number of hidden ones as well for the backers of this contract killer to pick up and review later.

Luna or Harper could destroy them if they wanted to remove such devices, but if either was going to act, they would have prevented the attack outright, which told him this assassin was, at least on the surface, playing by the rules.

And he could take a Tier 15 on as Quill, even with a field that restricted his main arsenal. Quill was still a mage, and Luna had ensured that he could fight well under conditions designed to counter him.

Activating [Mage’s Retreat] at a low level, Quill dodged the first series of thrusts and backed to the far wall. He wanted to use that as a barrier to defend his back, but felt there was something wrong with how the attacker wasn’t following through as he should.

With an instinct honed by long hours spent fighting for his life, Quill jumped to the ceiling and pushed off to the side, deeper into the hall, just as the wall behind him exploded. A second man burst through the crumbling wood and plaster and tried to grab where Quill would have been had he put his back to the wall.

Withdrawing a number of throwing knives, Quill threw them out at the floor, wanting to trigger any traps that might be there. Nothing happened, but he still noted the area as a place to avoid.

Two-on-one wasn’t ideal, but he could feel that they were only Tier 15, which gave him a chance to win this fight and keep his cover intact.

Landing, Quill threw off his cloak and twisted on his feet as he said, “Come now, don’t be so rude to the building. Someone will need to fix that wall, you know. If you wished to give me a workout, you should have invited me to the gym.”

The assassins hadn’t even paused as they rushed at him, so Quill summoned a pair of gauntlets to his hands and then theatrically drew a pair of daggers that were patterned to look like bird feathers. The weapons were functional despite their outward appearance, and he flicked one out as he dodged the larger man's grab, cutting his forearm.

Metal met metal, but he had expected that, and kicked out at the man's thigh with the tip of his boot.

The small blade he had extended from his boot on his twisting punctured the assassin's thigh, causing him to yelp. Before Quill was able to follow up, the second assailant closed in and tried to stab him with a thrust to the neck and one under the rib.

Quill was immediately put on the defensive as he dodged the first blow and tried to retreat, as the man was clearly empowering himself with something like [Mana Strength]. The assassin also had more experience with the dual dagger fighting style, as he quickly trapped Quill's off-hand blade and sent it flying with a long cut to his forearm.

Quill kept retreating and smiled as he let his second blade get ripped from his hands.

Jumping back and letting both attackers pass the blades, he activated his gauntlets while spreading his hands wide, letting the black hole gauntlets from Minkalla draw everything towards them.

Even the walls cracked under the power, but most importantly, the assassins were pulled off balance and weren't able to dodge the daggers that tried to return to Quill's hands.

The larger man had a hole punched through his chest as the blade ripped through his soft flesh and he fell to the ground, gasping even as his body was pulled towards Quill.

The second dagger-wielding assassin managed to dodge the projectile, but suffered a long cut to his arm that had pierced right through his armor.

Quill waggled the blades as he said, “The quill is mightier than the sword, and all of that. However, I believe limiting myself to one or the other at a time is unduly constricting. Now, are we to genuinely settle this, or not?”

The still-standing assassin seethed and attacked in a fury, forcing Quill to dodge a series of thrusts. As he flicked out his blades to block the follow up thrust, he chuckled as the blade had a notable chip in the edge. “Honestly, I can do better than this. Tier 18 materials may be a pain to enchant, but surely you could get some help with that?”

[Mage’s Retreat] flickered back into play, with Quill being careful to not utilize too much mana upon it. That he had the skill and had clearly upgraded it would be slightly odd, but it was used by enough mages who couldn’t afford a teleport that it would still be considered mostly normal for an Ascender candidate.

Using the speed buff from the skill, he closed the gap with the dagger-wielding man. “I prefer to finish a fight before it even starts, it’s true, but perhaps in your next life you won’t make the mistake of thinking I cannot cast spells.”

Using his speed advantage, Quill took a cut to his chest to plunge his dagger into the man's throat and, with a twist, decapitated the assassin. They only needed one alive to question, after all.

With the death of the first assailant and the second thoroughly incapacitated, the attack was over, and Luna appeared next to Harper, whose faceless mask was staring at the downed man. Guards appeared a moment later through a [Portal] and started securing the scene.

Quill looked to Luna and gestured with his chin to the decapitated man. “Is he a local?”

Harper answered instead of his manager. “Yes, but they're freelancers. I doubt they even know who hired them, but we can always try to find that out.” The royal looked at him and shook their head. “You should have used [Mage Hand] in the fight. It could have done the same trick as the gauntlets but without giving away the item's existence.”

Quill shrugged. “I’m not nearly good enough with the skill to use it in a mana disruption field.”

Luna backed up the royal, eyes narrowed. “You won’t get better until you try. This would have been a good scenario to get some real world practice in.”

Harper crouched down to inspect the corpse of the assassin. “I’ve heard you’ve been progressing well, it would have been worth an attempt.” They made a show of looking up and inspecting the walls. “It would have limited collateral damage as well. You gave a young woman a few rooms down a broken wrist.”

Quill took a moment to digest that. “I’m sorry, you ‘heard’ about my progress? Haven’t you been the one instructing us?”

Harper gave a small laugh at that. “Ah, no. In the past I’ve made more of a show of hiding it, but my Talent restricts me to [Telekinesis] alone. The lectures were done by my secretary, Lyre, who fills in for me when I’m unavailable or not equipped for a particular task. She acts as my face to the wider world, and over the years we’ve become… inseparable. I hear you are doing well in the training and we should get our one on one lesson if you continue as you have been.”

As a healer came to inspect the cut on his chest, Quill ripped the shirt wider so they could access the wound. He kept an eye on them in case they were an assassin who had infiltrated the guards, but doubted it. Even if Luna and Harper were hiding their existence to everyone like he suspected, attempting a hit with all the guards around was asking to be caught.

The healer tested his blood, which he had stopped circulating in case the blade was poisoned, and then cast some skills on the dagger to find there were no toxins on the blade.

He would purge his blood anyways, as there was little reason for an assassin to not use a poison. It was a great way to ensure that even if you only cut someone, the job still had a reasonable chance to succeed. Most fresh immortals didn’t have nearly the level of control to stop their circulatory system for long periods of time, and would eventually let the technique slip, giving a slow-acting poison a chance to get to the brain.

After the body was cleaned up, the still gurgling man was healed and taken away with a cultivation suppression collar. That settled, he and Luna went back to a new room where she went over what he could have done better in the attack.

Most of the critiques were minor, as he was well versed in what he could and could not show in his Quill mask. Rather, she focused on the three watchers that had been tracking his movements that he hadn’t noticed.

That was a sobering thought, but in the end, the attempt had been doomed to fail the moment the assassins decided to treat him like a hyper-specialized mage.

He realized that was probably the reason so much of his fight against Linda had been made public. He had only shown the abilities of a mage, and that confirmed to everyone watching that that was all he was. And those who had that confirmed acted on that information when trying to murder him.

A mana disruption field was a challenge to a normal mage, but it was debilitating to a talisman fighter. The current conjecture was that his Talent was to make talismans stronger, and that fed into the ‘proof.’ Even though this fight would show he was more capable, it didn’t give away any significant information about his abilities.

A mage with an upgraded [Mage’s Retreat] wasn’t that surprising, and while his gauntlets were fancy, they were still only Tier 14 items that weren’t even bonded to him, so he would outgrow them soon enough.

All in all, it was successful misdirection for anyone who got to watch the fight.

And, when the security camera footage was quietly released to a Path-focused news station, ‘anyone’ turned into ‘everyone who cared.’

In the end, Quill decided to schedule an interview with the woman who had shifted her focus to Circe’s staff.

She was at least smart enough to know the real scoop, and their interview consisted mostly of them watching the fight while she asked questions. Quill just trash-talked the two assassins and their methods, saying things like, ‘Any talisman fighter countered by not being able to use talismans is a failure,’ or, ‘I fight Tier 18 monsters; Tier 15 humans, no matter how good, are little more than fodder.'

While he played down the attack, it really hadn’t been a serious attempt in his opinion. Really, it was just a probing strike to see how many of his true capabilities they could bait out.

Part of that was why they released the recordings. If they had hidden them, those behind the attack would assume some part of the attack worked, and would keep trying. By showing him crushing the two attackers with ease, it would hopefully cut down on how many attacks he’d have to deal with.

The question of who was behind it was the question of the hour, but even Quill had no firm ideas.

The contract had been anonymous, but he believed it was a noble house, either the Hastings themselves, or someone like them. He had infringed on their honor and had been in one public place for close to a month before the hit happened. That was enough time for them to secretly contact someone to kill him.

Still, he wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. The Hastings were the number one suspect and everyone was looking at them. Though, it was such an obvious outcome that he doubted they were stupid enough to take a hit just months after the trial.

Of course, that didn’t limit the nobility who would lash out at him for daring to be an accomplice to shaming a noble. Some of them were petty enough to level at least this much malice or more his way, just for having done so, and then let the Hastings take the fall as the obvious suspect.

Or at least, that was what his cynical side said. There was no actual proof it was them at all. Most Pathers who reached Tier 15, let alone those who made a splash like fighting a Tier 19 and living to tell the tale, got attacked by the other Great Powers, so even Luna couldn’t give him a definitive answer as to who made a poor, probing attempt on his life.

Thankfully, the telekinesis lessons were almost over, and he was soon able to slip away and out of the Quill identity, which clearly had a target painted on its back. Best of all, he was on his way to meet back up with Liz.