The Path of Ascension 3: A LitRPG Adventure

58

What benefited the queendom, benefited all. The only real thorn in her side was having to form a ruling council with the Pathers. But so long as the Pather representative was capable and saw things her way, it should be a minor issue.

I expect that the redheaded Pather will be on Albie’s council at some point. What was her name again?

She checked her AI and found the woman’s profile that her people had put together. She saved a deeper look for later, only grabbing her name.

Ah, right. Elizabeth Moore. I’ll have to keep an eye on her. She seems promising.

The beneficial rule changes aside, Sara was most excited about her interactions with Albie. It was perfect, she had kept him in a call for hours, and gotten him quite relaxed around her. It had only taken a little complaining about how his Pathers had done better than hers.

Which wasn’t hard to fake, as she was quite peeved about that. She was getting more Pathers than him, and the fact that they had lost in overall quality was concerning. She also had quite a great time planning ambushes for all of their back-stabbing, and handling the problematic commanders that they hadn’t been able to remove.

Speaking of which, Albie had sent her a message regarding Alyssa’s ambush. The conniving snake apparently knew about the ambush, and it had to be rescheduled. Given what she knew of her, Sara wasn’t surprised that she found out.

How did she even get all those kingdom and Pather crafters to agree to her plan?

Alyssa’s scheme had been amazingly well timed, and she fully expected Albie to have his hands full with that one. It wasn’t perfect on her end either, though. She now needed to find a capable and loyal representative that her crafters would accept. It was never easy to replace a chosen leader but she couldn’t let Alyssa remain the public face of her crafters.

But, overall, today was a good day. Except for one nagging issue Alyssa brought to light.

Why was Albie spending all of his points on mana for defensive formations this early in the game? Is he expecting a siege?

That wasn’t like the Albert she knew. She corrected herself. That wasn’t like the Albert she thought she knew. In every interaction she had with him, he seemed intelligent and cognizant of his situation, and how to best take advantage. It was one of the reasons why she was so enamored with him. He would make the perfect co-ruler.

Neglecting the crafters was a rookie mistake. Everyone knew that there were two kinds of people you never piss off: healers and crafters. No one wanted to be blacklisted from either of their services. That was why his actions confused her.

With a flick of her fingers, Sara sent a message to her intelligence team. With one last, long look at Albie’s retreating figure, she began walking back to her headquarters with a pensive look on her face.

Oh, Albie…I hope you’ll forgive me when we take everything from you.

14

Matt and his team were left at their wits’ end once the meeting was over. They didn’t know what they should be doing with their free time. They couldn’t even spar, in case they injured themselves. So that was out of the question for at least another week, and without the ability to go on missions, Matt felt adrift.

With little left to do, Matt offered, “I’m going to pester an enchanter I know. Does anyone want to come?”

Annie sighed. “It’s too early to work. How about we go get pedicures? Maybe a full message? Treat ourselves a bit.”

No one else wanted to do work after that suggestion, and Matt wasn’t going to be the odd man out when he wouldn’t mind the distraction.

They found a nice place and were pampered into an absolute mess of luxury. The place was so fancy, they were treated to haircuts as well. His hair was buzzed back to nearly nothing, as he didn’t want to deal with it during a fight. Conor had taken the same approach as well.

Liz and Emily both had their long hair merely trimmed, but Annie had taken her shoulder-length hair to a style only a finger-length long. She said that it would only get in her way, with all the sneaking she planned on doing.

Aster had her coat brushed and shined. The finishing touch was the array of ribbons that she had woven through her fluffy tail, along with a matching pair of bows by her ears. She pranced around, showing off her cuteness to everyone they passed as they walked around the city. Eventually, they stopped in for a light lunch before they went their separate ways just after noon.

Annie and Emily were going to visit a friend, and Conor was doing the same. Liz just pushed Matt to go visit Kelley, the Tier 10 enchanter that he had made friends with. She was going to start preparing for the upcoming changes and try to get ahead of what she expected was coming.

He offered to help, but was very kindly told he wouldn’t be of much use to her.

It was actually a relief, he really didn’t want to play nice with people that he didn’t know. All he wanted was to do some enchanting.

Kelley was waiting at the front desk next to his nephew when Matt walked in. Matt hoped he would be. He had messaged the man earlier, and then once again when he was on his way.

“Oh, you’re here, good. Let’s head back. No girlfriend or Aster today?”

Matt shook the Tier 10’s hand and laughed. “Nah. We died yesterday, and after a spa day, we have nothing to do for the next two weeks, until we can safely spar again, which is at least a week out.”

The man looked positively gleeful at the news, and he half dragged Matt into his workshop.

“That’s perfect. I’ve been playing with the light rune you gave me. I think I figured out how they can be linked together to create an array, but the efficiency loss is still a little higher than what’s practical. To make it commercially viable, we need it to be as bright or brighter than the standard rune, at the same mana per minute level. Not the high end of mana cost, where it already wins. But I think I’m close.”

Matt snagged a pair of dark-tinted goggles and peered through the blinding light, looking at and recording the string of runes that Kelley had set up.

At 80 MPS, Matt’s AI started parsing through what Kelley had done, and began testing modifications from both the base rune and the one the older man had adjusted.

“I think we can work on this. First thing I see is…”

The sun was peeking over the horizon and illuminating the giant walled-off city. The tips of the skyscrapers glowing like candles as Matt walked down the street to their rooms in the headquarters building.

On the way, he ordered breakfast for everyone and returned to their room with warm bags in hand. He had just finished setting the plates when Liz came out of their room with a sleepy Aster. She still had the ribbons in her tail, but not the ones by her ears. Considering how much she moved in her sleep, he wasn’t surprised in the least.

Liz just yawned at him and asked, “How’d it go? I was surprised you didn’t come back last night, so I figured it either went really well or really badly.”