The Path of Ascension

Chapter 170

Matt sat with Liz as they waited for their table at the restaurant with anticipation. This was quite literally their first break in the last three years, and they were savoring every moment of it.

They only got the break because April and Kurt both vetoed Luna's suggestion of last-minute training as they were approaching Minkalla proper. Apparently, the view on approach was unparalleled in all the realm, and missing it was a sin. Luna herself didn’t even fight it too much, and agreed to cut them loose.

Minkalla, unlike most worlds, didn’t allow people to teleport into it directly, and forced people to fly in through chaotic space. Thanks to something thought to be tied to the planet’s cycles, Minkalla sucked in all free mana and essence from the entire star system, making it impossible to build the kind of infrastructure that teleportation nodes required. The only exception was at distant space stations, like the one they’d come from which need a ship to bring people in instead of the normal planet to planet teleportation.

When they passed through some invisible point, Matt got firsthand experience with the phenomenon. It was like they had traveled through a wall that had been built. At one moment everything was normal, and at the next, there was quite literally no ambient mana at all. When he tested it, and released some mana into the air, it vanished seemingly into nothing, sucked away faster than Matt’s peak Tier 11 brain could process. Essence would probably yield the same result, but he couldn't test that, so he had to take Kurt’s demonstration on it. His manager’s second in command demonstrated an exposed essence stone being drained nearly instantly, with the contents being aggressively pulled towards the massive planet.

Apparently, the essence couldn’t be contained as well as mana could, which was the only reason that mana powered technologies still worked in Minkalla’s influence at all.

Ominously, he had written that, “Minkalla is hungry and greedy,” before silently laughing.

Still, it allowed for what was called a once in a lifetime view, and if it was enough for Luna to allow them to skip out on an evening of training, he wouldn’t dare miss it.

Aster hadn’t waited, and immediately went to the beast-only deck of the luxury ship to find some bonds to play with.

She called over her shoulder that she loved them, but needed some time alone as well, especially after their last three years of being within arms reach of each other.

That left him and Liz free to purchase the ludicrously expensive fine-dining experience for twenty Tier 16 mana stones. It was expensive, but they had been delving so far up, and so often, they didn’t even feel the cost. Once they started delving Tier 15 rifts, they had the chance to get Tier 20 skills, and despite how rare of a reward they were, they had delved enough to get lucky a few times. Their only limiting factor was their own Tier, and the difference between their own and Tier 20 skills, which put a massive burden on their spirits to use them.

They were eager to enjoy some luxury after their years of constant delving, and they both primped and preened beforehand to look their best. They had ‘masks’ in the form of a bracelet that obscured their appearance for all but themselves, which was just fine for them. They only cared about looking their best for each other.

And Liz looked as fine as ever. She was wearing what she referred to as a ‘Torch’ outfit, preferring the aesthetic that came with being a fire mage over the patterns and colors that she’d normally wear as a blood mage. Still, the Tier 12 fabric shimmered in oranges and reds, almost as if the garment was made of actual fire, as she walked. Her hair was let down for the first time in quite a while, and it spilled down her back like its own river of faux flames. She was still wearing her most critical items, of course. On her right hand, an engraved silver and copper-colored storage ring shone like so many diamonds, while her left hand bore a plain, fingerless black glove and a freshly polished but otherwise featureless silver ring.

Matt had the silver ring’s twin on his own hand, next to a golden ring embedded with countless tiny mana stone shards gleaming with every color of the rainbow. On his other hand he had two paired, obsidian rings which held their portable house and spatial ring that his rewards from the tournament had come in. The rest of his outfit was primarily based around that color scheme, with a silver, sleeveless, tunic-like shirt over black pants, and a golden band on each arm. His hair had been cut for the first time in three years, turning it from a blond rat’s nest back into a shortly-cropped and clean hairstyle.

When they were led into the dining room by an impeccably dressed waiter, they saw a massive wall of glass that spanned fifty feet high, and stretched on for what seemed like a mile along the horizon.

Matt whistled as it came into view. His spiritual sense said it was between Tier 20 and Tier 30 glass- a quick check on his AI confirmed that the ship was made of Tier 25 materials- and around ten feet thick. He was glad of it, because any rogue asteroid wouldn’t result in them struggling to breathe in a vacuum during their dinner.

At Tier 11, it wouldn't kill them for at least a few hours, but it wasn’t something he wanted to deal with.

As their waiter sat them down, they nodded to the other indistinct couples, who were also quickly seated in rapid succession. The restaurant was supposed to time their visual arrival to Minkalla to right after dessert was finished, after all.

Looking at the tabletop, Matt inspected the vase of flowers that had been placed there, and noticed that they were actually made from metal. Notably copper, bronze, and aluminum, with each petal polished to a sleek shine.

Liz noticed he was observing the flowers and asked, “What’s so special about them?”

Matt pointed at the arrangement and said, “Each metal flower has obvious imperfections and scratches” He pointed them out and traced the lines as he talked. “Except, each has to be deliberate. They are perfect in their imperfection. Look here. Instead of clean welds where the connected metal should be indistinguishable on the join, there are small beads of metal that formed when the weld was created. That seems like a mistake, but when you look closer, you see each bead is exactly the same size and shape. It’s like a master artisan was trying to recreate the work of an amateur. The little bits of steam that seem to be coming out of them isn’t uniform, but they’re also perfectly placed to show off the flower's beauty.”

It made for a unique aesthetic he had never seen before.

Liz nodded along. “It is pretty, I'll admit that. The inanimate made to look alive.”

As they watched the sun grow brighter amongst the starry backdrop of the distant star systems in a stunning display, they simply chatted. They had been together for decades, and the last three years had been brutal, even by their standards. But they had been together, which was what truly mattered. Even so, they always had something to talk about, and they continued to do so while admiring the view.

In a rush, the first course of their meal came out to everyone all at once, and the waiter explained the intricacies of the dish before leaving them to enjoy.

The meal was so good, Matt and Liz almost forgot about their final dessert until the ship announced, “Minkalla will be visible in twenty minutes.”

They were still a bit far out, but when they Tiered up to Tier 11, more information became available to them because of their higher status. Most of it was still locked away, and not freely accessible until Tier 13, but Luna had drilled basically everything there was to know about the planet into their heads. It got to the point that Matt had once even heard Liz muttering Minkalla’s exact diameter and mass in her sleep.

As their dessert came out, they were able to see a small dot that grew larger by the second.

Matt had only taken a few bites of the brownie confection when he started to be able to see it, and his jaw practically dropped. Sure, he knew the exact position, size, and appearance of each of the three hundred and sixty spires on Minkalla, but it was another thing to see them for himself.

Massive spires of bronze and copper towered above any height that the metals should have been able to support, let alone while moving massive cogs that were the size of most planets.

Even through the vacuum of space, he felt like he could hear the clicking of gears and chains as they rattled and clanked, interspersed with puffs of glowing steam that rose from smokestacks releasing their exhaust to space.

Despite the sight, and though he had no real context for how the planet normally looked in-person, it seemed… dull. The metal wasn’t shiny, all of the mechanical components looked like they were moving lethargically, and the brass seemed darker than it should be.

Logically, it made sense, as a new cycle was about to start, preparing to re-energize the entire planet. Yet it also struck Matt as somehow incorrect. It was like seeing a dragon sick and withered. It clashed with the image he had created in his mind and resulted in a cognitive dissonance that just felt wrong.

The feeling only became worse as the sheer size of the world became clear. It was almost too massive for what it had first appeared to be.

Nobody really knew what Tier the planet was, just that it was above Tier 30. But grasping anything above that benchmark was impossible for the Tier 14 and below cultivators who could enter the place. Even with all of his prior knowledge, Matt couldn’t help but feel like the planet shouldn't be able to exist. Metal beams that long couldn’t support their own weight, let alone raise and lower boxes that were larger than moons.

At Tier 40, or even Tier 50, could something like that work? Surely not… even then, they didn't have the strength to span those distances unsupported. But there they were, right before his eyes.

The metal wasn't the only oddity. The steam from the stacks shouldn’t be pluming in a place with no atmosphere, but there it was.

Minkalla shouldn't exist, but it did.

It was beautiful.

It was awe-inspiring.

It was daunting.

The longer Matt watched, the more unsettled he felt.

He and Liz reached for each other's hands at nearly the same time.

Like most of the other diners, they sat around and watched a while longer. But eventually, they got up as other ships started to appear in their view. The various vessels began congregating as they approached one of the eight smaller, repurposed planets that served as Minkalla’s moons.

Each of the Great Powers had their own satellite moon orbiting around Minkalla proper, and the pair joined the rest of the participants as they boarded smaller descent vessels departing for the Empire’s world-moon.

As soon as they landed, they were in their armor and ready for a fight at any moment, despite how unlikely such a blatant assault was. Once Matt was comfortable enough to relax just the slightest bit, he was struck by the absolute lack of essence on the moon.

It made the world feel unreal, like it was made from cardboard and tissue paper. Matt felt like he could use a single finger to punch a hole through the planet without issue.

He could tell that the man made structures were at least made of Tiered materials, but none were above Tier 7.

They landed with a swarm of other landing ships in an open-air tower that was hundreds of floors tall, allowing thousands of ships to stream in and out without impeding one another. Once inside, they found a dozen workers who directed the arrivals to a check-in station deeper inside the honeycomb-like building.

He and Liz were in their Quill and Torch Masks, but neither was personifying the alternative identities. Thankfully only a few people stopped and asked for autographs and the like.

They wouldn't be using the personalities or skill sets when inside Minkalla; they were only donning the masks to conceal their identities. If they weren't wearing them, they would’ve just used the same ones they had on at dinner, but going as Quill and Torch would raise fewer questions.

The masks needed to be seen entering the moon, at the very least.

Matt and Liz were both surprised by the volume of people waiting to enter Minkalla. With the Empire hiding so much information until Tier 11, they had expected fewer participants. But as ships disgorged their passengers to leave, and were instantly replaced, the numbers began to add up. That most of them were Tier 13 or 14 made sense, he supposed, as it was when most of the valuable information actually became available. It was probably intentional on the government's part, if he was being honest.

Aster got to skip all of this, as she was technically being smuggled onto the moon, and Minkalla itself, but the pair had to stand in line like everyone else.

And the line was long. It took them nearly six hours to reach the front, where their identities were scanned and verified before they were allowed into a room with a number of others.

When the seats were full, a grizzled-looking old man walked onto the stage and pointed a finger above him, where an image was projected.

“Minkalla. A land of opportunity and hope. One can enter its steamy depths as a child and leave an adult. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. This isn't a briefing of what different things you can expect if you enter Minkalla, what fantastic treasures lie within its depths. This is a plea for you not to enter.”

No one had expected the old man to say that. He seemed the type to shove them into the fire and tell them to figure it out. Instead, his words had an honest ring to them that all of them felt.

“Please turn away. If you leave now, the Empire will reimburse your travel expenses, and you can continue on living. If you change your mind at any point before you choose to enter Minkalla itself, that offer stands. Please take it. If you must, absolutely must go in, come back when you’re at the peak of Tier 14, and between cycles. Even for the older people out there. Just come back later and take it slow.”

The old man paused and looked around, but when no one moved in the auditorium, he slumped, and the image above him changed to one highlighting and labeling each of the moons circling Minkalla.

The image distorted Minkalla and each moon, making them seem more equal in size, but it served its purpose.

“If you are here, and don’t know what Minkalla is, I implore you to please leave and come back once you do. You are far too under prepared if you know nothing this close to the cycle. We don’t hide information if you’re Tier 13 or above, but the Empire still encourages you to avoid this place, even at that point. We and the other seven Great Powers each possess territory in this wasteland of death. Each of us send in our youth throughout the years, but between cycles, it’s not as dangerous. Do not misunderstand me, it’s still a deadly place, with one in ten delvers never returning, but it’s far, far better than at the start of a new cycle. Yes, the best rewards can only be found at this time, because the planet and its now greater population of monsters have been reinvigorated. But I can assure you… you will not leave with whatever spoils you recover. Come between cycles, after the glory-seekers are done and the Sects, Republic and Federation have left. You’ll get almost as much, if not more than you’ll get now, since you’re each four times less likely to die trying if you wait. Yes, it’s true that once you go in and come out, you can’t return, rejected just as surely as if you’re over Tier 15. But, and I will say this time and time again… Minkalla. Is. Not. Worth. Dying. For. For most of you, it doesn’t matter if you enter once or one hundred times. Most of you will die in your one and only delve. If you heed my warning, and venture into the depths in-between cycles…? Most of you will live. At least more of you will live.”

A small lava lamp appeared over the image of Minkalla, and the man narrated what was happening. “You could think of a cycle in Minkalla as being like a lava lamp. After a while, the ‘lava’ inside gets out of sync, all of it falls to the heating rune to be warmed, and then it all rises up at once. It’s not exactly what happens in Minkalla, but it’s close enough. We are currently about two months out from the next eruption, where all the floors will be filled and reset. When that happens, all of you poor souls will enter, and few will exit.”

The old man paused as if waiting for someone to leave, but once again, no one did.

“As I said, the other Great Powers all send in their young, but there are elite ranks from each that you must be wary of. The Young Masters from the Sects, the Heroes from the Guilds, the Alphas from the Monsters Collective, the Slayers from the Federation, the Gladiators from the Republic, the Chosen from the Corporations, and the Knights from the Clans, along with the Ascenders from the Empire. They are all the leading prodigies of each Great Power, woe unto any of you who encounter them. If you do chance upon one of these elites, run away and let them have whatever they want. It's not worth getting in their way. And yes, even watch out for your fellow delvers from the Empire. You shouldn't kill each other, but nobody above Tier 15 can enter, or even see into the planet. We can’t stop you. No one can stop you. Just you, and whatever morality you have and hold onto. But the real danger for most of you will be the other average cultivators.”

When he said that even Ascenders would be dangerous to the other cultivators, he paused his gaze on on both Matt and Liz in their masks before tearing his eyes away.

The image on the screen changed and transformed into a list.

“First, ourselves and our allies. The Conglomerate of Guilds. If you can avoid it, don't fight them. They are our only true friends in a large, dark, and scary realm. We won't pursue any deaths at all that happen inside Minkalla, but any occasion of a fight between us and our friends would be... Disappointing. AI recordings don’t work down there, so proof and belief will be minimal, thus you are free to behave however you wish. The Guilds will send in around fifty million people. That’s about the minimum that any Power sends in.”

The man paused and sighed, and went on a tangent. “Remember, only people below Tier 14 can enter, and the average is Tier 13, as are most of you. If you see a Tier 13 or Tier 14, the smart thing is to run away. They are probably stronger than you, but you should be able to escape. If you see a Tier 12 or, worse yet, a Tier 11, run faster and hope you haven’t caught their attention. If they're strong enough to go in at that low of a Tier, you will be throwing away your lives to fight them. Individuals at those Tiers are monsters that us ordinary people can't compare with. Equate them to the very best Pathers you see on the news, who have a good shot at making it to Tier 20 or Tier 23 on The Path, or even possibly completing it. Despite having a Tier advantage or two, you can't beat them. If you see a Tier 11, you have no chance to beat them. They wouldn’t be here if they were too egotistical to know their strength, which only means that they are a true monster expected to complete The Path. Do you dare to risk your life on beating Duke Waters if he were only two Tiers weaker than you? If you think you could, you are wrong. If you believe yourself fortunate, and that the Tier 11 in front of you is simply delusional… you will not be lucky.”

The old man looked at them again, and Matt felt like he could see through them.

He knew he couldn't, as he could feel Luna personally enhancing their Mask’s privacy enchantments to make them look like they were Tier 12. But the old man didn’t seem to need more than his eyes to see who they really were.

“We, the Empire, sadly send in around two hundred million youths, despite our best efforts. But our mortal population is much larger than that of the other Great Powers, so we send in a smaller percentage of our total population. We have quadrillions of citizens, after all. The Clans send in around one-fifty to two hundred million, depending on the cycle. Same with the Republic, The Monster Collective, and the Federation. The Corporations send about as many as the Guilds, around fifty million people. Sometimes more come, but the average stays pretty steady around that number. Finally, the Sects send in around four hundred million kids. That is a significant percentage of their youths in the proper Tier range, and each of them are ready and willing to cut your throats at first sight. Treat every interaction with the Sects as a life and death fight, as they don't need a reason to want to kill you. Remember, for most of you the masses of the other Great Powers are who you need to worry about. Not the rare, strong participants. Minkalla is large, but we are sending over a billion of you in at once, and the deeper you go, the less space there is, forcing you together.”

The image changed again. “These are the last few things I’ll be telling you. All of you should go to an information broker and get their full-day presentation and explanation package. The Empire even subsidizes them, so all you need to spend is your time. If you want to spend a bit of money, watch the one recording we have of the interior, courtesy of one lass whose Talent let her bypass the normal restrictions on AI recordings a couple centuries ago. But my point is, Minkalla, at the start of a cycle, has seven floors packed full of death. In addition, each floor has a rewards arena and a breakthrough point. If you’re lucky enough to get to one of them, take a good hard look at yourself and leave if you think you might not make it. Getting something is better than nothing, it’s not wasting your one shot. If you come out alive, let alone with even a minor prize, you’ve beaten the odds.”

Behind him, the Sects name enlarged and showed a ninety percent fraction of a pie chart. “The Sects will lose about ninety percent of the people they send in. A horrific number. Most of them won't die because they're weak, but because they push too far, and get killed by a monster or enemy cultivator. But in the end, most of them won't come back. Dead is dead and it doesn't matter how you end up that way. Ourselves, the Guilds, the Republic, and the Clans all have about a forty percent return rate. Most of you will die for the same reasons as the kids from the Sects. The people with the best survival rating are the Corporations and the Federation, at around sixty percent. Historically speaking, they are more conservative in their delving, and have a much better survival rating because of it.”

Matt nodded while endless drills from Luna replayed in his head. Sixty, forty, ten. Don’t push too fast, don’t overcommit. They should be fine, but they still needed to not die as priority number one, and had been told in no uncertain terms that they were to push to Tier 12 if they were too overwhelmed. Though how they were supposed to do that without any ambient essence, he didn’t know. Presumably, it was linked to the planet’s rewards, being the one thing that they didn’t know. Luna hadn’t wanted to distract them from their preparations with ‘idle dreams’, but they’d spent the last year learning about every possible floor theme that they might encounter, every challenge that had ever been recorded, and even the sorts of puzzles that had historically gated off reward rooms.

He wondered if they’d be pushed to get one of the one-day briefings, then figured that they probably would. Luna was obsessive at the best of times, but the preparation for Minkalla had been on another level. April probably had one scheduled for them already, and just hadn’t informed them yet.

The old man glared at the crowd and growled. “Be like them. The deeper you go, the better the rewards, yes, but the greater the danger. The monsters at the highest layers of Minkalla are only fresh Tier 14’s, but the deeper you go, the stronger they are, until they get to the peak of Tier 14. Also, for any of you who are at the peak of Tier 14, and want to advance to Tier 15 to get an advantage in Minkalla. It won't work. We even have what happens if you try recorded, because people never learn their lesson.”

The old man poked at the air interacting with his AI until a familiar video started to play behind him.

A young man in Sect robes laughed on the screen as he monologued about how at Tier 15, he could defeat all of them. Except mid-sentence, he exploded in a fine mist of blood and bone. It was gruesome, but not unfamiliar, as Luna had made them watch Wendy’s entire recording eleven times. With all the rewards edited out, of course, because Luna was still Luna.

“If you advance to Tier 15, you die. You aren’t ejected from the planet, like if you try to enter at Tier 15. You just die. Not a single person has ever circumvented that rule. We have lots of reports come in every year about a few attempting it because of their Talent, some cracked skill, or something else. It never works. Don't even bother trying, you will not be the first to somehow survive. I don’t care if your Talent is literally ‘will not explode as a result of reaching Tier 15 on Minkalla.’ It. Will. Not. Work.”

The old man lowered his head from where it had been fixed on, as he stared at someone on the other side of the room for a few seconds before finishing up. “Minkalla is dangerous. Killing each other is expected, and even encouraged by the planet. The deeper you go, the more likely you end up as someone's prey. If you are Tier 13 and normally delve up to Tier 14, statistically speaking, you can get to the second floor without too much issue. If you are Tier 14 and delve Tier 15 rifts, you can probably make it to the third floor. At that point, just leave. Escape with the prizes you have, and don't push further. Anything beyond the third floor can’t be quantified with statistics, as so few make it back from that point. You only need to meet one elite ready to pick your corpse clean of any gathered treasure. The real Monsters in Minkalla are the other people. It’s practically just luck to survive after the third floor, and you. Will. Not. Be. Lucky.”

He pointed to the screen, “Don’t be a part of that sixty percent death rate. Eighty percent of that comes from pushing past the third floor. Be smart and leave.”

As he looked over all of them, he added. “Let me remind you that you can change your mind at any time. Please, just turn back now and value your lives. Come back mid cycle and have a much safer time. Push to floor four, even five then. You’ll get less rewards per floor, yes, but you can go deeper and still survive. You’ll still get the deeper floor rewards. The people who go mid-cycle come back with more, and come back more often than those who try to go in at the… optimal time. It's only optimal if you are strong enough to survive. For the vast majority of you here, believe me when I say, you are not. You will be eaten by a monster, or serve as cannon fodder for the best and strongest.”

With that, the man left, and the doors opened to staff directing them to various locations.

Matt and Liz shot each other a look through their masks. Luna had already explained this and more in their training. The old man's speech just seemed to be a way to get people to turn back from entering Minkalla. It wasn't anything they and everyone else didn't already know. Really, it was just like a longer version of a briefing they had before boarding their shuttle. In the end, it didn’t seem to work, and only a couple people returned through the doors they had come through.

As they went through a few more in-process procedures, the number of arrivals started to overwhelm their sense of scale.

It was a never-ending stream of lines that only grew longer as more and more ships arrived.

It was so bad that staff walked around offering snacks to everyone waiting. There was even a service to hold one's spot in line for trips to the bathroom, as long as you weren’t close to the front.

It was frankly ridiculous.

But once they were done, they exited the spaceport and were spat out onto a normal, if busy, city street.

As they walked to their accommodations, they saw that every shop was selling Tier 14 equipment and gear. Talismans and potions were abundant, along with survival gear and rift-made mana stones. It seemed that every shop sold some variation or combination of those goods, with others just specializing in one space.

The other most common shops were those that sold armor and weapons. Half the shops were selling their own specialized gear at extortionist prices.

Tier 14 armor should not sell for Tier 16 mana stones, no matter how much the proprietors extolled their goods’ abilities. Seeing the prices, Matt was happy that Luna had he and Aster regear with Tier 14 armor before they left the Empire proper.

That had been expensive, especially the custom pieces, but not to these inflated levels of prices.

When they arrived at their lodging, Luna teleported them to a separate location where they exchanged their Quill and Torch masks for blank masks that wouldn’t give anything away.

With them on, Aster looked like a general medium-sized quadruped of unidentifiable species. Better equipped, they were able to wander the city together as they waited for their final member to arrive.

It was interesting to see the city so packed, as normally the moon didn’t hold that many people during the off cycles. But when a new cycle was happening, the city filled to bursting as it struggled to contain millions of people for a few months.

It took Queen another week, but she had reportedly made a longer trip than they had. Still she still arrived with plenty of time to spare for group training.

Minkalla was close to the eruption that would herald the new cycle, and as it neared, the time estimate got more and more accurate. With a little less than two months left, they had the event timed down to the hour.

Queen had to go through the same onboarding process they had, but hours later, she also was free.

A few hours after that, they were finally able to meet up.

In their Quill and Torch masks, Matt and Liz sat with Luna off to the side as they waited for Queen and her own manager to enter the heavily secure room in Luna’s personal portable home, which hovered in a reserved space for those types of residences.

Liz turned to Luna and asked before their guest arrived, “And it's a good idea to tell Queen everything about us?”

Matt rubbed his finger along the webbing of her hand. He appreciated her defensiveness, but they had been over this, and he did agree with Luna’s reasoning. For all it stung that they hadn’t even been allowed to tell the Unbroken everything, but were expected to tell a comparative stranger. Still they needed full trust for what they were about to do.

“It’s better for you to go in alone rather than hide something from a teammate in a place as dangerous as Minkalla. But if you choose to not team up with her, you’ll almost certainly be forced to Tier up before you get the best rewards.”

Matt smiled under his mask. Liz was always worried for him, but they had been given preliminary psychological evaluations of Queen months before this. They had exchanged them after they reconfirmed their intentions to go to Minkalla together. Neither party had been particularly eager to share something so frank and personal as a psych-eval, but they sort of knew each other after communicating over the last three years.

Everything said, Queen was trustworthy, and wouldn't expose Matt’s Talent for no reason. Or for any reason, really. But it was still a scary thought.

All that aside, Luna was right. Minkalla was dangerous for Tier 14s, let alone Tier 11s like them. The safety briefer’s speech still rang in his ears, as had a thousand and one similar speeches Luna had given them in private. She was confident that they’d be able to survive the place at Tier 12, and that they would survive long enough at Tier 11 to reach Tier 12 if needed. But if they wanted the best of the still-unnamed rewards, they needed to go with Queen and stay Tier 11 the entire time.

If Matt went in there hiding behind the separate identities of Quill or Matt, they wouldn’t stand a chance. He needed to use his full kit, old and new skills alike, to even have a hope of reaching the core at Tier 11, and getting whatever reward awaited them.

And Queen seemed trustworthy from everything they had learned of her. She had told them a little about her brother, who she had needed to practically raise herself after her parent's divorce and mother's death.

As someone deprived of his parents, he sympathized with her about her lack of a caring father and mother. It was cruel and wasteful of something precious and beautiful. Family shouldn’t do that to each other.

Matt also understood Liz and her own protectiveness of him.

It was nice, but unnecessary at this point.

Half an hour later, Queen walked through the door alongside a blonde with vibrant purple eyes and a teasing smile that kept trying to creep on her face.

Queen waved at them as she sat down.

The blonde was the first to speak. “I’m Carol. Manager extraordinaire.”

Luna raised her index finger while somehow looking bored and attentive at the same time. “Luna. Manager.”

Carol explained. “It's customary to have the managers introduce themselves, first for the Pathers when doing something like this. Talents and real identities alike are closely hidden secrets. As managers, we are trusted to keep secrets, but if you want us to leave, we will. If either of you don't agree to do your little tell all, now is the last chance to back out. Minkalla is dangerous, and we can't have misgivings.”

Matt shrugged and looked at Liz. Even with masks on, they could read each other, and neither cared about the other manager. Luna had already explained that managers were under strict control on what they could and couldn't say, and that they were trusted and well vetted. Beyond that, they were all under strict surveillance in case one of them tried anything shifty.

Privacy didn’t exist for a manager.

That was enough for them not to worry about Carol.

It still felt weird to reveal everything, but Matt was the first to reach up and pull off his mask.

Liz did the same a moment later, and Queen mirrored the motion heartbeat later. As soon as they did that, Aster burst into the room and scampered onto Matt’s lap as she introduced herself.

“I’m Aster and also on the team, but I’m not a part of the secret identities, so I needed to hide. It's nice to meet you! You did really good at the tournament. I was rooting for you to do well, and you did!”

Queen looked overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of the exuberant fox, but it gave Matt time to inspect the woman who had been under the mask.

Her skin was dusky and her hair dark like the normal complexion of those in the Detrual section of the Empire. Her hair was surprisingly long for a melee fighter, and now unleashed from the mask, he could see it was kept in a tight bun on the back of her head.

Her eyes were what caught Matt.

They were steel gray, like Shen Ruogang, the woman he was trained by in the Legacy he earned during the Tier 10 tournament. Their eyes were similar in the fact that they looked sharp enough to cut through steel with a single glance.

As Queen finally brought her attention from Aster, she looked from him to Liz before her eyes narrowed.

Her first words were, “So, which fighting style is the real one?”

Matt shrugged, “Both. I’m a blademage. I was just holding back most of the mage as Matt, and most of the blade as Quill.”

Queen slammed a fist down on the table. “You cheated me out of a real challenge of blades. I want a rematch. No bullshit this time.”

She turned to her manager and growled. “And you! You said the teams that got managers early were limited, but you never said there was a real blade fighter. I feel scammed.”

Matt couldn’t help but smile. Her being upset that he had sandbagged in their first fight was not what he had been expecting. Not at all.

It was so odd and honest, he could only admire it. Though now that he thought about their first interaction in the Masquerade lounge, where she ignored them when she found out they weren’t blade wielders, it did make sense.

Queen turned to Liz, and with hope shining in her eyes, she asked, “You don't happen to be a secret blade user?”

When Liz laughingly said no, Queen looked to Aster, who just looked at her paws. “I don't really have the thumbs for it...”

Queen looked dejected at the confirmation that they didn’t use blades, but then turned back to Matt and moved to stand up. “Let's have a real spar.”

Luna coughed. “First, we need to go over Talents and how you can interact with each other. I have a more than extensive training regimen set up for our next seven weeks. You'll get all the fighting you want then.”

Carol chimed in as well, “And we need to go over how Minkalla works and the strategies. It's random, but we have a lot of information, and you need to learn it all. No bullshit of hiding data at this point. You need to know everything we have, and you'll learn it all. We won't know what you'll face in Minkalla, but we'll prepare you as best we can.”

Matt nodded absently, shutting out the part of his brain that wanted to break into the ‘spires of Minkalla’ song he’d come up with to memorize just that. He wasn’t sure if Queen already knew everything, or if Carol was just starting to tell her now. He paused, now that he thought about it, Carol might be making sure that Luna hadn’t hidden any information from them.

Carol’s ever-present half grin bloomed into a true smile as she said, “And best of all, we can plan for the rewards you'll aim for.”

Matt and Liz sat up in unison, looking at Luna. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Queen do the same with her manager, but he was mostly preoccupied with being very happy that Luna was nodding along with Carol’s words.

Carol looked to Queen, and their fellow Pather started talking. “I’m Susanne. I'd rather you call me Sue or Queen rather than Ann or Annie if you have to shorten it. My Talent is about calligraphy, and not useful to my fighting style as of yet. But although I'm working on expanding what my Talent considers a writing utensil, I'm a far cry from getting it to work on my greatsword. I used my Legacy to get myself a bit of spatial power with my Concept. It’s a greatsword Concept which I always keep active and on me.” She raised her right hand where, on a bracelet like a little charm, hung a miniature greatsword.

He inspected it with his spiritual sense and Concept, only to find it packed with power. Susanne might have miniaturized her signature weapon, but she hadn't shrunk its power. “My Concept is all about polishing out the imperfections with me and my sword. We are one and the same. A pair, but the same whole. I improve, and my sword improves. In less fancy terms, it benefits directly from my physical cultivation and self-buffing skills, as well as my willpower, which is itself rated as extraordinary in both control and strength. My Concept is strictly external, but the armor I got as my reward from the Tier 10 tournament gives me a lot of the same benefits that an internal Concept does, so long as I’m using my actual Concept, which is always.”

Susanne tapped the table, thinking for a moment before saying, “I’m also very good at using a lot of general Concept powers, like flight, and most of my strategy is built around that fact. I also have a few skills that help me punch through really tough defenses and fight against multiple opponents. My Legacy gives me some spatial abilities which I use for offense and maneuvering around the battlefield, so ranged opponents find it very difficult to get away or stay away from me. Can’t teleport myself with it yet, but I’m working on that. Even without that, I have a speed oriented [Dash] that allows me to close the gap, but I haven’t had to use it that much since the tournament.” Susanne chewed on her lip a little before nodding. “That's the basics, anyway. Anything else is better learned when we fight.”

Matt whistled to show his appreciation at Susanne. Honestly, he was beyond impressed that her skill was natural. It also reinvigorated his desire to learn from her.

Fighting someone better than yourself was always a good way to improve.

Aster hopped to her feet and introduced herself. “I’m Aster, and I used to be an ice fox, but I changed my bloodline to winter, which made me a lot stronger. I’m generally support, but I can help out with a few new spells, and I have a few good debuffs to weaken and slow the enemies, which is helpful when attacking higher Tier rifts. I also can hit really hard if I have enough ice to manipulate. I’m super excited—”

Matt missed what Aster said after that as he saw Carol’s eyes get almost imperceptibly wide before narrowing down to Aster.

He was watching for any signs of hostility until she pulled her eyes away and winked at Matt.

That was when he noticed that her irises weren’t just purple. Rather, they were like chiseled amethyst. As he looked closer, he swore that he could see facets in them.

She smiled at him before turning her attention to Liz.

Liz introduced herself and her own abilities, to which Queen nodded along. “I’m Elizabeth, but definitely just call me Liz or Torch if you want. Never Beth. Anyway, I’m a blood mage, but primarily fight like a water mage. I’ve got a Talent that converts most of my skills into blood-aspected versions, and an internal concept that empowers my blood, and they combine into giving me a broad range of concept-powered blood skills, but very little outside that. Overall, I’m a close-to midrange mage, and while I can play the role of a melee warrior, it’s not where I shine.”

“You can only use blood skills? Really? How did you do the whole Torch thing? There’s no way that was all blood.” Susanne questioned Liz.

“I’ve got a phoenix bloodline.” Liz shrugged, “And skills in my outer spirit aren’t transformed into blood variants. After that, it’s just a lot of practice with [Fire Manipulation] and learning to work around the inefficiency. Um, what else? Oh yeah, my glove acts as a spatial storage for blood, so I don’t need to cut myself open or bleed any enemies to get started.”

Liz paused, and Matt saw Queen’s eyes widen as the fact that Torch fought with only skills in her outer spirit really sank in. “Oh yeah, and I’m a bit of an amateur alchemist, so I can use my own blood to make boosting potions. I have variants for everyone else to use as well, but they aren't quite as good as my [Blood Copy] versions. That's really it I think.”

Finally, it was Matt’s turn. He took a deep breath and started.

“I’m Matthew, but I usually go by Matt, and I have a Talent that changes the way my mana regenerates, so the closer I am to empty, the more mana I generate. At Tier 11, I have 2,560 mana, and when I have less than 25.6 current mana, I generate 2,560 mana per second. It only takes me about ten minutes to reach 256 mana, but beyond that, it's days and years, so I’ll never naturally reach full.

“Overall, I use a lot of channel skills. I have a [Cracked Phantom Armor] that works as a channel, [Endurance], [Mage’s Retreat], [Acrobat’s Finesse], [Barbarian’s Hide], and the other cultivation-enhancing channel skills. And because my Talent prevents me from putting any essence in my magical core I have a 100% essence distribution to my physical core. They combine to give me a physique well above my own Tier, and I couple it with an [Endurance] modified for healing. [Lesser Regeneration] allows me to self heal easily without having to use [Ranged Heal]. If I need to use a skill that takes more than 25 mana, I’ve got a set of rechargeable mana stones I drain and refill mid-fight.

“Outside of combat, having lots of mana is great for crafting, but especially the talismans I use as Quill. They’re not easier for me to make or anything, I just don’t need to spend mana stones to have enough mana to make it work. But I do have a ring that lets me mimic mana types that I’ve stored within it, which helps me make some enchantments which normally only guilds produce. If you have a crafting hobby that eats mana, I'm happy to assist while we’re together. The mana costs me nothing to make, and sometimes I’ll throw a few hundred million mana at my AI to, for example, make a new type of rune. Which yeah, that was what I did at the tournament. I'm a pretty good enchanter, but not good enough to create a dozen new runes out of nowhere. But with enough mana to throw at the problem…”

Having said that, Matt paused to see Susanne’s reaction, but she only seemed interested when he said that he had more physical fighting capabilities. She almost completely ignored the mention of spells and enchantments.

Carol's eyes had widened to nearly comical sizes as he explained, only for her to narrow them and try to stare through his body.

He didn’t feel any new power press through Luna’s own, and considering the caliber of the glare the manager leveled at the void cat, he assumed she had failed.

“My Concept is a white hole, and it lets me give endless mana to anyone around me. It's technically limited by my willpower, but I have a lot of it, and have learned to use it well. That lets me keep my team filled to the brim with mana during a fight, while I can use my Talent between fights to fill them up with rechargeable mana stones. Between fights, it gives us basically limitless mana to practice with, which means we’ve gotten more familiar with some of our more niche skills. Like with Liz and her [Fire Manipulation], she has more practice with the skill then most non-immortal fire mages probably do.

“I recently managed to create a general white list for my Concept, which means I only include people I want to. It's not perfect, and can be tricked by a skilled illusionist or other impersonator, but it generally works well enough that I'm able to keep my team going and not helping the enemy even during a fight. Other than that, it gives me the ability to repel attacks both magical and mundane, but that's still hard for me, and drains my willpower to stop more than medium attacks.”

As he remembered he and Liz forgot about their teleportation rings he added, "Oh and Liz and I have a pair of bonded teleportation rings that let us swap places and short range teleport."

Matt thought it over and nodded. “That's the important part, at least.” He looked from Susanne to Carol. “I very much would appreciate my Talent not spreading. I hide it behind my cracked armor skill and the talismans, but I really don't want others to know how much I can do. The Royals know, of course, and I’m pretty sure the upper levels of Path management do as well, but the fewer people who know, the better.”

Once Matt was done, Luna pulled out a pile of papers. “We need to get the four of you comfortable fighting with each other. First, we will—”

Susanne raised her hand and stopped Luna. “Nope fuck that. I need to have a real fight with Matt. Then we can spar all together, but I was cheated out of a good fight in the Tier 10 tournament, and I won't wait another minute.”

As she stood up, Matt did the same. He had been waiting just as long as she had for this fight.

They both had the last three years to grow. It was only a question if Queen had closed the distance, and by how much.

Matt remembered how much he grew with Luna’s guidance in the early years, and Queen experiencing that same growth excited him.

But this time, he had nothing to hide, and new skills to show.

Ideally, he wanted to beat her without his trump cards as Matt from the tournament. Without the handicaps he had worked under, it might just be possible.

That was his real goal for himself. Beating Queen in a battle of steel. Not magic.

Now that they had spatial rings, they didn’t even need to stop to put on their armor, and just summoned it on their bodies.

It was time for a fight.