The Path of Ascension

Chapter 218

Matt and Luna stood in the Tier 10 rift as he flexed his 5,120 mana pool all on [Earth Manipulation].

The ground seemed to flow as he pushed the skill to do as he commanded, and more like water than stone and dirt, the landscape around them rose up and rushed forward.

Observing the damage and destruction with his spiritual sense, Matt whistled even as he shunted the essence that rushed into him from the many, many monsters he had killed back into the air for the rift to reabsorb it.

He didn’t want or need Tier 10 essence mingling in with his cultivation core, and that wasn’t their purpose here anyway.

Luna, in her cat form, jumped up to his shoulder and said, “Your range has improved, but that's just from the doubling of mana and the Tier up. It's 8.3% less than it should be, and it shows how the inefficiency is hurting you.”

She nodded and flicked the back of his head with her tail. It actually stung like someone had flicked him with their finger. All in all, it was a reminder that she was at least Tier 40 with power well beyond his comprehension.

And really, it wasn’t his fault. He was so used to Aster riding in his backpack that reaching up and scratching something fluffy on his shoulder was second nature. Luna really didn’t need to knock him flat for that one mistake.

Aster had, of course, found it funny, but Matt was plotting his vengeance. One day he’d be stronger than Luna, and would then ruffle the woman's fur in revenge.

Sadly, that day was far, far off, as demonstrated by the casual wave of her paw that sent all of the earth he had manipulated back to what it had originally been like. She even recreated the hills and valleys perfectly, down to the scattering of rocks and small stones, to a degree that his AI wasn’t able to see the difference.

The only indication of their presence was the absence of trees and grasses nearby, which were destroyed by his earlier manipulation.

“Do it again, but go through the control exercise.” Matt turned to observe Luna, who, despite speaking, was currently grooming herself, making his brain hurt at the dissonance of her actions.

When Aster talked and did something with her mouth, it was one thing, but she talked with her AI. When Luna did it, she was using [Air Manipulation] to recreate her human voice, and it sounded all too accurate, painting the picture of his manager in human form.

Shaking his head, he took a deep breath before going through one of the exercises Luna had first taught him as a Tier 6.

The ground around him rippled as he sent his mana through [Earth Manipulation] and then told the ground within his range to flatten.

It only took a moment, but all the hills and valleys Luna created were gone, and he created a surface with a deviation of less than a sixteenth of an inch from its highest point to its lowest.

Luna rumbled, “Better. Only a 5.9% deviation larger than expected. Continue.”

Getting the go ahead, Matt flexed his mana once more, this time focusing on destroying every stone larger than a pea into smaller fragments, then focused on grinding down even those peas of gravel into the smallest pieces he could manage.

He felt Luna’s purr-like rumble through his shoulder as she said, “Step one was a little sloppy, but step two was much better with a 2.3% larger decrease in size than expected.”

Matt's mouth twisted into a self mocking sneer after hearing that. It wasn’t bad by any means, but he had felt his own manipulation, and wasn’t happy with the results. A large portion of that final effort had been completed by his increased mana regeneration rate, rather than skill.

He knew that mana control would be an issue with his Talent, but it irked him to see the effects in the flesh, and knew it would only get worse in the future every time he doubled his mana.

This test was completed in stages that each evaluated a different application of [Earth Manipulation].

The first test focused on his maximum range, while the second tested his long range control and sensory feedback from the skill itself in trying to level the ground as much as possible. The third test was meant to see his control over the ground and his ability to process information; he first needed to crush larger rocks to specific dimensions without going too small, and then he ground it all to the smallest level he could to test his raw power.

It shouldn't be a surprise that he didn’t have an issue with raw power and its application.

Flexing his mana once more, he moved onto the fourth step, where he took all the loose ground and compacted it into a pseudo-sandstone-like material as he commanded the ground to fuse into a solid mass.

As he stopped, Luna’s tail swished. “1.9% increase in material hardness greater than we expected from the increase in mana. That could be from increased familiarity with the skill or the boost to your spirit. I wish we had been able to test this before you had your Inspiration. It would have made for a good baseline. The best we have is the test from right before you entered Minkalla.”

“I used [Earth Manipulation] quite a lot in Minkalla to control the terrain, so I did get good practice with it.”

Luna pondered his words before telling him to continue.

With that order, he began the final part of this test.

It was also his least favorite, as it was the one test he never performed as well as he would have liked on it.

Commanding the solid ground to rise, he created intricate concentric rings of square stones, exactly five feet on a side, to form in set distances that varied in each ring as they stretched outward to the farthest distances of his control.

Once the first layer was completed, he created a stone cube on top of his last one exactly half the first one's size, and he repeated that until the cubes were smaller than dice, where he was no longer able to keep them perfectly square.

It was irritating, but he had expected this test to be bad and continued on after pausing long enough for Luna to give him a critical grunt.

With a mental command, he transformed the stacked cubes into a more uniform pyramid, trying to sharpen the edges and flatten the planes as much as possible. If he had been able to focus all of his concentration on one pyramid, he could have easily made a mirror smooth structure, but that wasn’t the purpose of this test. It was meant to test his split control and concentration.

After Luna once more indicated for him to continue, he then shaped the pyramids into spirals that reached for the sky with strands of stone that thinned out as they rose. Once he felt he could no longer shape the stone any thinner while still keeping it stable, he stopped and then started to etch a tessellation of a triangular weave as small as he could manage while keeping the lines clear.

The lines weren’t nearly as clean as he would have preferred, but not as bad as he feared. Small detailed work like this had never been his forte, and it looked even worse when compared to the masterful details that Liz and Aster could craft with their elements of choice.

Together they walked through the rows of spiral columns and Luna pointed out details. Most of them were imperfections, and more importantly, variations on the columns. For this test, having a mistake repeated in the pattern was better than variation, as it showed a lapse in his split control.

“9.2% more variation than before, but only 1.1% more mistakes in the general pattern.”

Having said that, the pillars sunk back into the ground before becoming mirror smooth under Luna’s expert control, after which, she had him run through a similar test with the other three level 1 mana types, water, wind, and fire.

The results were similar to his [Earth Manipulation], with his power increasing but his control decreasing across the board.

Then they deliberately made things worse.

Using two Tier 14 mana stones, he once more doubled his mana from 5,120 to 10,240 using his slow mana converter. It was inefficient and wasteful, but they had been delving Tier 14 rifts before they had even entered Minkalla, and had a surplus. And this way, he didn’t have to leave the instance they were in. Waiting in line for this rift again would be more annoying than spending the mana stones to convert to his mana. Liz was currently using the house for an alchemy experiment, which meant he couldn't just take it from under her, forcing him to his back up.

After his mana was once more doubled, they repeated their test to abysmal results.

Matt could feel the decrease in his control over his mana the instant he activated [Earth Manipulation], and that decline was proven through all the subsequent tests.

His results were, on average, twenty percent lower than they had been when he had 5,000 mana, and even worse in the fine control tests.

When he finished and let the last spell drop, Luna swatted him— gently, this time.

“Get out of your own head, kid. We expected this, and we’re using this as a benchmark to test how bad the doubles will affect you later on, when you’re adding billions of mana. It's a trainable skill, so once you reach Tier 25, and you don't have a fire under your ass to advance, you’ll have all the time in the world to train between Tiers.”

Together, they left the rift and went back to where they had rented a plot of land to plop down their houses.

There, he tested his mana patty skills, and saw an even greater reduction of his hard won abilities. From needing only 850 mana to control the skill, he now needed 1300 just to prevent mana from leaking, showing just how far his control fell. He wasn’t even able to move the ball of raw mana without the entire construct falling apart once more, making him feel even worse. Sure, Liz and Aster could only just barely move the balls at 1000 mana, but they could move them. The balls broke after a few exchanges, sure, but he couldn't do that at all.

The only one worse than him at the skill was Susanne, but she had never really practiced the technique, even if she had heard about it from Jeremiah.

Now that they were healed, they moved closer to the city for convenience of access to its shops and rifts while they waited for April and Jeremiah to come back from Minkalla with their skills.

It should be soon, but they were healed, and Luna had started all of their training once more.

Carol was preparing to leave after having given all of them training plans for their Concepts and the new Concept powers they had gotten inside Minkalla. Both how to strengthen their current powers and how to grow them for the future. That wasn’t all she taught though, she spent some one on one time with Matt, Liz, and Aster, giving them various tips and tricks even as Kurt and Luna gave Susanne some focused training in return.

But even all of that training only delayed Carol's eventual departure. She, unlike Luna, was responsible for a number of Pathers, and mostly relied on her team's liaison and half a dozen trainers, like Kurt, to cycle in and train the teams under her.

According to her, most of her time was spent traveling from team to team to periodically check up on them when she would then give more one on one training and coaching, all while being updated and tweaking the training plans for her other teams from the information her charges sent her along with the trainers and liaisons.

Other than when she first took a new Pather team, or had a particularly promising one in Minkalla, she rarely spent more than a month out of every few years with any of her teams. She just didn’t have the time to do what Luna and Kurt generally did for Matt’s team, spending all day every day helping them.

From what Carol and Kurt said, Luna only got away with it because of her stellar track record of improving even the most mediocre teams into powerhouses. If the tribunal could, they would love to give each Pather their own management team, but with how large the Path was, that just wasn’t feasible.

Luna even grinned slightly as Kurt wrote about how the tribunal had tried to demand she take more teams once she decided on focusing on just one.

There was a joke about herding cats there, with her circumvention of their authority, but Matt just wasn’t brave enough to make it.

Fortunately, Aster was brave enough, so she had to deal with all of her bath water turning hot every time she went to clean for three full days before Luna relented.

She insisted it was worth it, though.

It was just a little more than three months from when the liaisons left that they came back bearing gifts.

Or rather, the fruits from their efforts in the Minkalla system's auction houses.

Matt whistled as he saw the spread of skill shards, natural treasures, and one single item.

A staff that Luna immediately started inspecting.

She rolled it around before sniffing it a few times. Then, with a flick of her paw, the staff flew at Liz, and April explained the functions of it.

“So it's not perfect, but I think it's a damn good growth item. If you don’t want it, Aster could use it once she’s got hands, or you could sell it on the Empire Market to afford almost anything else. But, I think it’s good for you.”

Liz caught the staff and gave it an experimental, though gentle, twirl. After a quick examination, she set the Tier 5 item down gingerly on the table in front of them.

“We can find a crafter who specializes in riftcraft items to install a spearhead, by my reckoning, and while the spearhead wouldn’t benefit from any growth item benefits, it wouldn’t damage the staff either. A good enough crafter may even be able to set it up so that Matt could upgrade the spearhead each Tier.” April waited for Liz to nod before explaining further. “As for the enchantment on it… it will let you utilize any level 1 mana manipulation spell with any other elemental manipulation spell. There’s a bit more to it, of course, but that’s the gist of it.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. For most people, it represented a substantial boost to their versatility, functionally quadrupling the number of skills they had access to in their inner and core spirit. Whether elemental Talents and Concepts would apply to the end result depended on the specifics of the staff and the person, but generally, they’d benefit from any effects that happened at-cast. A mana discount or power boost were two easy examples, but anything that required ongoing connection would be lost, such as Concept reinforcement. For Liz, it would be even better. As she was forced to leave any non-blood skills in her outer spirit at all times, they were incredibly slow to modify, and extremely expensive and slow to cast. That she’d made it through the Tier 10 tournament predominantly using outer spirit skills was a testament to just how good she was.

Liz’s face lit up alongside him, but then almost immediately, she wilted slightly as she looked at Luna. “Is this a step in the wrong direction?”

Luna cocked her head at Liz but said nothing, which prompted Liz to continue. “We’ve been going over what I learned in my reflection lives, and have been planning how to allow me to not be just a ‘red water mage’. This almost feels like a step backward from that plan.”

Matt swore he saw Luna smirk as she lifted a rear paw and started to groom herself. “What are the pros and cons?”

Liz took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “Okay, pros first. I can use it to control fire with my [Blood Manipulation], upgraded and acting as my innate skill. It’s a substantial boost in power compared to my existing fire magic. I—”

April interrupted. “Remember, the staff is currently Tier 5 and has been appraised to have an effective fifty percent conversion rate. By Tier 25, when it gains a new ability, it’s projected to be around a hundred percent efficient. When we bring it up to Tier 12 or so, it’ll probably be seventy five percent efficient.”

Liz nodded to show she heard and understood April as she continued. “Regardless, in addition to just the benefit to Torch, it will give me a substantial versatility bonus. Expanding my blood skills to air, earth, fire, and water will help me with some wider scale powers- a pseudo [Earth Tidal Wave] would be great, if I can throw enough stone around. Then, even though it wouldn’t be as efficient, I can get some level of control over elements like lava by manipulating the earth part. Then, more practice with [Blood Manipulation] controlling different elements will give me more varied practice with that skill, helping my natural modifications and skill and continuing out to everything I use it for.”

Liz gestured with her free hand as she continued. “On the other hand, I still don’t know how much I want to be a blood mage, or how much I want to just be a red water mage, but this staff is very much a tool for the latter. And I don’t know if this would push me to being nothing more than that. I’m not happy with my other selves, nor the blood mages before me, but do I want to ignore such a massive pool of power for me to draw on? This staff, it would be so useful, but would it just be a crutch?”

Luna walked through the air as if she was still on the table and then around Liz, inspecting her.

“My my my, who are you, and what have you done with Liz?” Her voice dripped sarcasm like honey. “But I'm glad you recognize the issue.”

Matt— and judging from her expression, Liz— thought Luna would tell her to sell the staff, but her next words surprised them both.

“My advice? Keep the staff, sell off some of your extra houses and other things you kept, maybe make a few rifts, and sell another few buckets of skills on the empire market. Find a growth item you like on it, buy that, and bond to it if you three can't manage to make a growth item rift to replace the glove. Four growth items should be safe enough for you. Because yes, this is a very good item for you. Just like you shouldn’t ignore the rest of your blood magic, you shouldn’t ignore your pyromancy. Not just because of Torch, but because it plays to your strengths and will provide, if nothing else, tremendous benefit to your ability to fight off other elemental specialists. It will also enable you to better utilize water magic directly, and getting some additional practice with wind certainly won’t go awry as a phoenix. The defensive capabilities of earth magic are nothing to scoff at either. Tools shouldn’t become crutches but they are power amplifiers nonetheless and should be used as such.”

Aster, on the other hand, didn’t seem surprised in the slightest, and just seemed smug through their bond.

Kurt’s pen rose up and started writing, catching all of their attention. “I’m no appraiser, but I've seen a wand with a nearly identical growth effect when I was in the army. When the wielder increased it to Tier 25, it became further capable of controlling level 2 elements. If this one follows the same trend, it would further increase the element of surprise, but even if it doesn't, I doubt it's a bad choice for you.”

Liz nodded, clearly thinking of possible items she could use. It was a fairly expensive gamble, but it was hardly like they couldn’t afford it. There were only so many more skills that they could even use, only so many natural treasures worth hunting for.

Then her nod became a bit shakier, and she snatched Matt’s hand, squeezing as hard as she could. Matt gave an encouraging squeeze back, and Liz’s breath became slightly ragged. Her eyes were fixed on the dark wooden rod in front of them, and the magic subtly coiling around it.

Matt wasn’t certain what exactly was going on in her head, but he had a few guesses. Then, quick as a snake, Liz snatched the staff in front of her so quickly and with such force, the wood began to splinter in her grip. With a pulse of essence, the mana flowing around the staff began to intertwine with Liz’s own, and she let out a shuddering sigh.

Matt gave his girlfriend a side-hug, and after a moment fixated on her new staff, she nodded and set it to the side, ensuring she kept the splinters broken off in her exuberance close by. It would fix itself in time and as a natural part of tiering up, but if they had all the pieces, it would be easier. With the growth item thus taken care of, they started going through everything else April had gotten for them.

Aster’s kit was the most expanded overall, with a number of new support skills and treasures that not only gave her tools for direct attacks, but buffs, debuffs, and illusions. The latter was especially relevant as she meditated with her Fragment of the Rainbow Bridge. The treasure didn’t do much beyond serving as a mana-dense shard of crystal filled with Aurora mana, but that was enough, as Aster was working to develop her bloodline in that direction.

Matt’s own set was about enhancing what he was already good at, and between his Stygian Gossamer rendering his left hand practically unbreakable, and the Infinite Diamond empowering his [Cracked Phantom Armor], his defenses would be enough to actually stop stronger attacks in the rifts they delved. The choice on where to actually use the Stygian Gossamer had been heated, with Liz wanting him to protect his face or neck, but Matt felt he could still do that with a nigh indestructible hand.

Besides, he wasn’t about to start intentionally blocking attacks with his face anytime soon, invulnerable or not.

The Sect scroll of modifications was interesting. Where most of the scrolls he had seen seemed less than practical, a more expensive [Analyze] wouldn’t really hinder him most of the time. He could make the relevant modifications gradually, increasing both the cost and the skill’s power as his mana pool grew. His innate skill slot would help there, cutting down the modification time needed each Tier from months to days.

If the more useful Sect skill modification scrolls were like this he understood where a portion of their combat prowess came from. If you could never know what a fighter's skills would do it was easy to fall into a trap.

Between his new Concept powers and the Dewdrop Jadechip, his enchanting also became substantially easier. Tier 11 to Tier 13 enchantments were a bit of a jump, but his new tools helped bridge the gap.

Liz found herself with a strong showing of new skills, and while only time would tell how many of them broke or converted to a dud form, as her Talent had its way with them, they were hopeful. Luna was fairly familiar with Liz’s Talent at this point, and she’d picked out the skills she thought would synergize well.

Newly kitted out, the four of them debated just what they wanted to use their eight upgrade orbs on, having gotten six more on the final floor. Given most of their new skills were Tier 20, they didn’t need to account for all of their new toys when figuring out just what they needed to improve.

Aster was the lone exception, as her first choice was her new [Cracked Shatter]. The increased power of the Tier 8 skill didn’t disappoint, as not only was the power of the explosion itself increased, turning even a fist-sized hailstone into a legitimate threat, but so too did it gain an elemental ice effect that acted almost as an icy [Fireball] on top of its kinetic force.

She also upgraded [Kar’Tan Greets His Foes], or as Liz had taken to calling it, [Headwind]. From a simple aura of still air, slowing down hostiles passively, the upgrade made winds actively fight the progress of designated targets, with an effect quite reminiscent of Winter’s Great Working. On top of it all, the effect grew stronger with the mana she put into it. Taking a step or running invited sudden gusts of wind to try and knock the targets over, and in addition to Concept flying being suppressed, enemies who did get airborne would have to fight ferocious gales seeking to swat them from the sky.

Matt chose [Mage’s Retreat] and [Ranger’s Sight] for himself. While their power boost was fairly minor, all things considered, it extended their effective lifespan substantially. Because of the way that his channeling enhanced the effectiveness of essence, there came a point in the high teens for [Mage’s Retreat] and the mid-twenties for its Tier 14 counterparts, when the non-upgraded skills simply wouldn’t be able to have any appreciable effect on his cultivation. It would empower billions of essence, but he would have quadrillions empowering him passively. Even then, the price would rise, but by then he’d be well able to afford it.

There were, of course, higher-tier versions of the skills, culminating with the Tier 44 [Archmage’s Presence], but simply upgrading the skills was also enough to make them useful until he completed the Path at least. There was even a Tier 14 skill for strength that he could take. Well, technically there were two. [Strongman’s Buff] and [Sudden Sprint] both existed, but he’d need to use both of them to get the same boost as from [Mage’s Retreat], and he’d need to start modifying them again from scratch. Their buffs didn’t even stack, so it was pointless for him to try and double up on them.

Of course, it wasn’t just because of an overabundance of planning that he chose them. [Mage’s Retreat] gained an absolutely massive boost to his running speed, easily making him somewhere between two and ten times faster than he had been before, depending on how much mana he put into it, and putting the final nail in [Sudden Sprint]’s coffin. [Ranger’s Sight], by comparison, gave him the ability to sense past minor obstructions, such as seeing through foliage, fog, annoying helmet visors, and even hair in front of his face. He’d be able to hear a specific voice in a massive crowd, or pick out a specific scent in a complex aroma. It had a similar effect on his spiritual perception, but that was more focused on seeing inside things, such as counting the rings inside a tree.

Liz’s first choice was easy, upgrading [Lesser Blood Sacrifice] to not only make the mana recovery more efficient, but also make the cultivation boost it provided last longer and become stronger.

Her second choice was substantially harder, until she’d narrowed it down to [Blood Dash] and [Hungering Blood]. [Dash], which the former had been derived from while retaining nearly full functionality, had its upgrade provide an incredibly powerful leap, letting its users fly through the air even faster than the base skill let them run. With Matt’s upgraded [Mage’s Retreat], she was uncertain how well she could literally keep up with him, but ultimately decided against it after her [Whirling Charge] was absorbed and converted to [Bloodrush], taking care of her additional movement-skill needs.

Upgraded [Hungering Darkness], the skill [Hungering Blood] had derived itself from, gained something of a feedback loop, as part of the life drained from its victims went to empowering the skill itself, making it both harder to break out of and spread across a larger area. Liz’s version couldn’t reinforce itself, but it could feed any blood it drained into another blood skill directly, strengthening it past its normal limits.

[Bloodrush] was actually one skill which held substantial synergy with it, as the skill would slowly accumulate a stream of blood trailing after Liz as she ran. The faster and longer she ran, the more blood accumulated, and the more blood she had following her, the faster she could run. Once she stopped, the accumulated blood would slam into whatever she stopped in front of. But, when combined with [Hungering Blood], Liz accumulated blood much faster than normal, substantially enhancing her feedback loop.

Susanne took a fairly straightforward pair for herself, with [Iron Skin] and [Counter]. The former gave a semi-straightforward defensive buff in that any metal, such as her growth armor, she was in close proximity to and in active contact with would benefit from the skill’s reinforcement, and even some of her cultivated durability.

[Counter]’s upgrade, meanwhile, added a minor shockwave to its clash, knocking nearby people off-balance. With a bit of practice timing her new [Retaliate] skill, she could magnify the effect and inflict reflected damage on everyone nearby instead of just whoever she countered, making it a great skill for fighting off hordes of weaker monsters.

While Matt and Susanne both wanted to have one last spar, one last fight before they parted ways, it simply wasn’t possible. While they were whole again, all four limbs intact and mostly functional, they were still on medical watch, and could very easily fall back into a fairly nasty healing cooldown if they weren’t careful. That they were less than halfway done assimilating their new skills, and that Matt was a full Tier ahead of Susanne were also factors, but fairly minor ones all told.

They both would have had fun.

Still, because they were all whole once again, and past the point of unexpected, sudden complications from their healing, it was time for them to get moving once again. After several heartfelt goodbyes, and promises to keep in touch and fight once again when they had the chance, Carol and Susanne boarded their ship, lifted into the air with a hum from the engines, and vanished into the sky.

Kurt stood beside Matt, Liz, and Aster as they looked after the swiftly-retreating vessel as it broke through the atmosphere and shimmered into Chaotic Space, leaving a smear of quickly-fading color in its wake.

Having seen their silent trainer interact with Carol a fair amount, Matt felt fairly confident that he knew why his eyes lingered on where the other manager had vanished for so long. Carol was a bit crazy from what he’d seen, but who knew? Maybe Kurt was into that.

They couldn’t stare for too long, of course. There were skills to be absorbed, magic control exercises to be mastered, bodies to be exercised, rifts to be delved, and progress to be made, none of which was going to happen on this world.