The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

26

“I know, but it didn’t seem fair to me. Melinda shared her big secret, and I just couldn’t bring myself to reciprocate. But they’re good people. I can tell that much already. I’ll definitely tell them. I just need to work up the nerve first.” With her mind clearly made up, Liz squeezed his hand and pulled Aster from his arms.

When they arrived at their suite of rooms, they found Emily, Annie, and Conor lounging.

As they walked in, Emily called out, “We’ve been waiting for you. Are you coming to the auction?”

Liz nodded, saying, “We were sparring with some old friends. We’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

Conor checked his watch, “Should be enough time. I hear that it’s being held in a special location, and that transports will start moving at the top of the hour. That’s in fifteen minutes, though. I don’t want to be the last to arrive.”

Annie popped to her feet and added, “Yes! This is our first auction like this. I hear if you have more than 1,000 points you can have a room for yourself. We can pool our points to stay together, right?”

Emily rolled her eyes, and Matt noticed that Annie hadn’t taken her eyes off Conor, who still had the far-off look of someone interacting with their AI.

Matt decided to help her in her ploy for the man’s attention.

“I think that’s a great idea.”

Annie grinned at him and threw him a thumbs up hidden away from Conor.

“Well hurry up and go shower, then. We don’t have time!”

7

Conor had been right about the area being packed. The entirety of the massive landing area where the Pathers’ shuttles came down was chock full of people.

There were easily tens of thousands of people waiting. Matt took a quick glance down the streets and couldn’t see anything but more people standing around. Considering they had just walked those streets, he was flabbergasted at the sudden appearance of the crowd.

They moved down the steps and fought their way to the edge of the grass platform. Annie tried to say something, but the noise of the mob around them was too loud to overcome.

Giving up, she shrugged and swallowed what she wanted to say. Apparently, it wasn’t important enough to message their AIs for.

They waited for nearly ten minutes before everyone started to look up, drawing Matt’s gaze along with them. They watched as a swarm of flat shuttles flew through the air. They looked like flying stone platforms with railings.

The stone platforms hovered over the crowd, and ladders extended out of them, allowing people to start climbing up. Matt felt for the platforms with his spiritual sense and found that each platform’s aura felt as dense as a Tier 15s. These things were spiritually heavy.

He and his team were near the last of the people to get on the platform, and they were pressed up against the outer railing. The flying platform took off with a smoothness that surprised Matt. There was a shield that seemed to stop the turbulent wind, but it also removed drag somehow. It was an interesting formation. Matt was trying to find where the runes were, wanting to see if he could make heads or tails of them.

To his surprise, he actually found them, but they were obfuscated with some kind of security formation that seemed to make their forms change every time he looked at them. As he tried to peer through the obscuring layer, he was immediately hit with a headache and a roiling stomach.

Realizing it was futile to continue, he pulled his attention back to looking over the edge of the platform and enjoying the view of the ocean flashing by.

He called out, “I grew up in a city by the coast. My parents’ apartment was facing the waterfront. I loved watching the waves pass by. It was always soothing.”

The rest of his team didn’t take much notice of his sharing that, but he didn’t miss the look of surprise from Liz. He never talked about his parents. He just smiled at her and went back to looking at the water whipping by. His time on the islands had given him a renewed appreciation of the view that he hadn’t known he missed until it was gone.

Emily added while following Matt’s gaze, “We went to play at the beach quite a lot. We grew up on a planet with more islands than anything else. Kinda like a resort planet, but not quite. Water is as peaceful as anything. Most nights, we’d fall asleep while listening to the water running over the rocky beaches.”

Annie looked to Conor, who added after a moment, “I grew up on a Tier 25 planet, so I lived in an inland city. I didn’t really ever see the ocean until I joined the Path, after I went to a world without the ability to defend the cities. I spent a half-year delving a water rift with lots of little attacking fish. They had an amazing fish soup thing, though. I think I ate it every day for a month.”

The large front liner sighed, and everyone looked at Liz. Matt did as well. He was interested in what she would say.

“I grew up in the capital.”

Annie and Emily’s eyes went big as they interrupted her in near unison.

“The capital capital? Like of the Empire?”

“Wow. That’s a Tier 47 world.”

Conor just raised an eyebrow, asking the same question. Matt was interested in how she would play it. He didn’t think that she would tell them about her heritage. He was surprised she had even shared this much.

Liz shrugged like it didn’t matter.

“If you’re not the child of a powerhouse, most of the planet is played out and locked down.”

Conor nodded like he understood that, but Annie and Emily looked interested, so Liz explained, “There are the three great guilds, who each have two Tier 47 rifts. The Empire controls the rest, with six for the independents who refuse to take part in worldly affairs, and the rest under their direct control. Even then, it’s still a Tier 47 planet. There just aren’t any rifts below Tier 40. It’s too hard to keep the mana and essence out of them, so you can’t really advance if you’re young and don’t want to absorb ambient essence. Most of the kids are taken to another planet in the Soren star system.”

She waved her hands around and had them orbit in a circle, as if they didn’t know how planets orbited.

“The capital has a dozen planets orbiting it, each trying to Tier up to Tier 47 by using the essence that radiates off the capital itself. One of them is still only Tier 15, which lets them use in-system teleporters, and that provides the kids rifts to delve. But even then, it’s not really accessible for most. There’s just too many people and a limited number of rifts, so most get sent off-world to nearby lower Tier planets. I was lucky enough to be offered a spot on the Path and got a place to delve. Once I was Tier 3, I got out as fast as I could.”

Annie said, “It must be amazing, though. Have you ever seen the Emperor, or one of the royals?”

Matt had to stifle a grin at that. Liz didn’t so much as give anything away, but she froze for a moment before saying, “Once or twice. It’s not that special. I’ve found the planets that aren’t just giant cities way more impressive. Or at least, more varied. It can be lonely being a child surrounded by people thirty Tiers or more higher than you. I didn’t really have many people near my age to play with.”

He reached over and rubbed her back. Matt was proud of her for sharing that much.

Before they could say more, their flying platform angled downward, and they smoothly submerged beneath the waves. Matt was surprised because if he hadn’t seen the change, he would have had no idea when they moved from air to water. The flying platform didn’t change its pace at all.

He reached out to touch the rushing water, but Liz pulled his hand back and with a mischievous smile and said, “Watch.”

He and his team did so. Not ten seconds later, someone else reached out and put their hand through the barrier just to be sucked out violently.

Liz giggled, and when she saw the looks of shock, she pointed at the dozen or so people who repeated the same action. “I’ve used these types of shuttles before when I visited my uncle. There were always a few tourists who got dragged out. The shuttle pilots even made a bit of a competition out of it. They would deliberately fly near schools of fish to tempt people to reach out.”

Seeing their looks of shock, she rolled her eyes, “They’ll be fine. Really, if they’re taking us underwater, they expected this. There, look. The collection team.”

As the people were fading from view, they saw another platform scooping them up and bringing them to safety.

Now that their lives weren’t at risk, it was actually kind of funny. Matt laughed while also looking at his own fingers. He would have tested it without hesitation. It just would have been embarrassing to arrive soaking wet at the auction.

Before long, Matt saw a massive dome surrounded by a few dozen smaller ones branching off, connected by clear tunnels. It was a shining beacon of light in the inky waters.