The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

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A large backpack with a white fox was synonymous with their team, so it had to be made to look like a much slimmer backpack, forcing Liz to wear the fake armor ensemble.

Conor was in what Matt felt was the most dangerous position. He was keeping his own role as a heavy melee fighter, but his armor was too distinctive, so it had been swapped out with a second set. It apparently wasn’t sitting right no matter how much they adjusted it. That wasn’t exactly an ideal way to go into battle, and Liz intended to hurry to his side as soon as things kicked off.

Annie and Emily had simply done the same as Matt and Liz. Emily was acting like a basic mage, equipped with only a [Fireball], just like Matt.

Annie was using one of the golem crossbows he had made in bulk and sold in the monthly auction.

The sales had netted them nearly 5,000 points, which while not a ton, was still a few days’ worth of their idle share of the kingdom earned points. Their team sat around the fifth spot in the rankings when they could hit big missions back to back. Their death all but grinded their momentum to a halt, sliding them back to thirty-second place. It was a setback from which they still had hardly recovered from.

The six of them were infamous for a guaranteed death, so most teams preferred to surrender rather than take the death when they showed up. Losing half your points to buy your freedom and prevent a two-week death timer was a much better option than losing half your points and earning a two week wait to get back in the war.

They were hoping that this ambush would allow them to get back on track, due to a distinct lack of forts changing hands after the Pather’s meeting. Without orders to take a fortress, they couldn’t earn points from the army war AI.

That left them with an ambush mission.

Twenty guards were interspersed throughout the shipment. They flew in formation around a messenger with a spatial bag stuffed to the brim with Tier 6 gold.

Or, at least, that was the information that the kingdom had purposefully leaked. Usually, the courier was given both the package and the fastest flying sword. But today, the courier was bait. He was paid well, especially for the second phase of the ambush, which they knew was lying in wait somewhere nearby.

Matt was the actual courier because he had the fastest sword. His Tier 7 sword was made for speed after all. It was better than the ones that the kingdom was allowed to bring, and what most people could afford. His [Cracked Phantom Armor] also played a large part in his role, as he could activate it and take a hit that would incapacitate most of the others.

And they didn’t intend to just survive the ambush. No, Team Bucket was going to find the ones responsible and kill them, then destroy any and all infrastructure that the ambushers had established.

As they flew around the target fort’s anti-flying zone, they heard a shout from the neutral zone, and Matt readied his staff while turning. So far, this was precisely how the other ambushes went down. They pinned the teams against the anti-flying barrier, and either pushed the team in when they had the height advantage or chased the team down if they tried to flee.

Three teams of ten people had flown up behind, beside, and in front of Matt’s team. The ambushers must have thought that they made a safe bet with the ten extra fighters. They were wrong to think that they could win through sheer numbers.

Matt and Emily flew up with the courier and three other guards, while the other fifteen guards rushed ahead to entangle the ten fighters flying in front of them. It was exactly as every other escort team acted.

The five guards with the courier were meant to help him break through any subsequent ambushes.

Matt cast a [Fireball] at the nearest group of mages as they flew up and over, and smiled at the staff in his hands.

An average staff either reduced the mana cost of a spell, or increased the recovery speed of the spell diagram in the spirit, allowing the mage to cast faster. His weapon increased the damage of all fire spells channeled through it. Not exactly a rare effect, but it put his weakened [Fireball] just over the strength of a normal [Fireball]. The staff enabled him to go from the fist-sized ball of flame that normally appeared by his hand to a head-sized one that now appeared at the top of his staff.

With a satisfying woosh, the [Fireball] raced out and slammed into the head of a melee fighter, who wasn’t able to get into contact with the kingdom troops. That unfortunate soldier was teleported out, and the explosion’s blast wave sent the two nearest fighters tumbling as they lost control of their flying devices.

Matt kept his place in the formation as the six of them flew up and over the forward-most attackers and escorts. His AI indicated that Liz, Aster, and Conor were fine, but he still worried for them in the madness of the battle.

Annie was off his radar, as she should be. Her role was to go invisible and shadow their group until the enemies fled from the failed ambush.

Not even two minutes after their escape, they flew into the expected second ambush, just as they slipped through a slight gap in anti-flying formations.

Ten more people flew up from their concealed positions in the underbrush below. Eight Tier 6s and two Tier 7s now faced Matt and his group.

Matt launched five [Fireball]s in quick succession, then started to fill the mana stone he had in the band on his wrist, before draining it and launching more.

The bracelets of mana stones were their team’s newest idea. Normally, Matt kept his team of three going with his Concept, or manually filled their personalized, fast converting mana stones. Their current formation made that infeasible, so they had the idea to make bracelets with ten personal mana stones and charge them before their fights.

The extra 2,000 mana would enable them to fight longer than anticipated. Filling this many mana stones wasn’t usually done, as it took a typical mage about a day and a half to refill their mana pool. Very few people could afford to spend that much time away from any real fighting. At least, not people who were trying to push themselves. Training was just as important as combat, after all.

Yet with Matt able to refill his team’s mana pools with his Concept, it was fine for them to sit around for an hour and bank the 4,000 mana needed for the bracelets, while also having mana to train with.

Their preparation had some flaws, though. The mana stones in the bracelet couldn’t be linked to act as one big battery. So, they had to individually access each stone and then draw from it. From their testing, ten stones around their wrists were the max they could use before they couldn’t efficiently withdraw mana. With more training, they could probably increase that number, but for now, ten was the best they could do.